Canadian Rocky Mountains Photography Roadtrip: Part 2

In part two of our Canadian road trip we're leaving Banff and heading west towards British Columbia. First up was the town of Field near Yoho National Park and I don't think there's any way to come to Canada without taking at least one photo of the Canadian Pacific Railway. After taking this shot of Mount Murchison we made the first of several detours. This one being to Saskatchewan River Crossing. We parked a few hundred meters up from the bridge and walked back along the road to get a brief glimpse of the view to take in the turquoise waters which meandered through the valley. And in hindsight it would have been worth allowing a bit more time so that we could wander a little further afield. We still had a few hours drive ahead of us before we got to our accommodation for the night. During this time we listened to a lot of classic rock radio which seemed like the perfect soundtrack for the epic landscapes around us. And we also noticed that there were a lot of classic cars on the road and they all seem to be heading in the same direction. If you've seen any of the previous videos on this channel you'll probably have noticed that classic cars are like the Hitchcock if Kodak took my money. They seem to make a cameo in every video. There's just dozens of vintage cars parked up so we thought we'd take a little detour. Oh look at that that's pretty cool. Can I ask a probably a silly question? We noticed a lot of amazing cars on the road today. There seems to be a lot of meetups. Is a significant day or? There's a really big car show on Saturday. Aha okay. Oh cool. There's like hundreds down at the golf course. Yeah. So you just go through town out that way. Okay. Yeah on Saturday. This shot in particular is a great example of what I think Portra can do so well other than delivering great skin tones. I really like these rich reddish browns and the slightly muted greens of the grass. So I wasn't actually intending to use half a roll of film on classic cars. This is great to me for landscapes but maybe when we get into Revelsoke we'll pick up another roll of Portra. I don't know but definitely worth it I think. Roughly halfway between Banff and Vancouver lies Shoe Shop Lake, our next destination. We arrived pretty late at night in total darkness but woke to this incredible view. The light was superb so it seemed like perfect time to load up the roll of Fujifilm Velvia 50 that I brought along. We intended to do some gentle hikes in the area and so we came prepared with bear spray which thankfully we did not need to use. Although to be honest I was a bit disappointed not to have seen any bear from a safe distance at least. Although Kika did humor me with this impression of a tree climbing cub. So when we got to the waterfall I spent some time lining up shots but it just didn't feel like it was working out and I actually left without taking a single photo which doesn't make much sense in hindsight especially as film is so cheap these days and sometimes life isn't about taking photos. Usually it is but sometimes it isn't. We got back to our accommodation and we met our hosts for the first time and when we told them about the vintage cars that we'd seen in Radium they told us that they had something that they wanted to show us. It turned out that our hosts had a spectacular Ford Thunderbird in the garage. It's got power seats, it's got power windows, power brakes, power steering. I think one of my favorite things about photography and this is particularly relevant to analog photography but it also applies to things like classic cars or any niche interest is that it creates an opportunity to have a conversation with someone, get to know someone albeit briefly who you may otherwise not have had that opportunity to connect with. Revelstoke is a lively and pretty international community. It was actually created in the 1800s like many towns which emerged when the Canadian Pacific Railway was built. It's hard to know how close we can get to that. Nowadays it's largely known for being a mountain resort town and it attracts a lot of outdoor types. So I really like the shot taken by Kika. I think the BMX photobomber in the foreground combined with Queen Anne Revival style architecture really capture the feel of Revelstoke. There's a festival, a weekend festival along. It's like a festival of arts and culture and your family and friends. Very wholesome stuff. But it starts at 6 p.m which is when things are starting to get a bit dark here. I've run out of faster film so I went into a shop called Mountain Archives which is a really cool shop where they sell vintage clothes, skateboards, vinyl records and photography stuff and picked up a roll of Portrait 100 so that I can keep filming later on this evening. So another short hike and this time we arrived at a waterfall and a school of salmon swimming upstream. There's a school of fish right at the bottom of this waterfall. Makes it a pretty tasty place for bears. I'd never actually seen wild salmon before so this was a surprise to me and certainly a special moment. So much so that I wasn't too upset about misjudging my hop and landing ankle deep in the stream. So the evening was upon us and it seemed like a great time to shoot more Velvia. Hoping that the flat light could help with its limited dynamic range. To be honest it didn't help that much and the sky is completely blown out and I think I should have meted for the highlights here. But luckily for me I also took a few photos on the Fuji GFX that night which came out a lot better. So this was our last day of the road trip or at least the last day before it's time to start making the journey back towards Calgary where we'd fly home from and this meant it was time to start burning through some rolls of film. Clarodet Gold is a really nice summer film but it's also a really nice autumn film as well. There's a bit of sunlight I don't have today. Loads of bits of flora and leaf debris have got into the back which is interesting. I hope to capture a sense of mystery here with the long straight road disappearing into the foggy forest. When the sun finally came out the shadow was cast in the road which I think takes some of the attention away from the traveling vehicle. We're actually making our way back east towards Calgary and we stopped off at Banff National Park. I'd really like to get this shot of this landscape here where there's a train track curving around the side of a creek and mountains in the background. It's quite a popular photo spot so we'll see. We've waited about 15 minutes already, maybe give it another 15 minutes and if it doesn't turn up I think we'll just go and get some poutine instead. Yeah, only another 15 minutes. You think we're lucky? After two hours? Better be good. But thankfully we did stick it out and we were rewarded with the sights and sounds of the Canadian Pacific Railway racing through Moran's Curve. Best trip I've had so far. Joking aside, I'm actually really happy with how these photos turned out. One of the highlights of this little detour wasn't so much capturing the train but getting to meet and chat with a cyclist who was on his own epic adventure across Canada. Lunchtime now? It's definitely lunchtime now. I'm starving. We're now back where we started at Teejax Lake and the reason for this is because when we got here and jumped in a lake I took the thumb grip off my camera to put the radio mic on a hot shoe and it wasn't until we got to our next destination that I realised it was missing so we thought we'd just stop off here on the way back to the airport to see if we can find it. Not very hopeful but we're passing anyway so let's see. I'll give it a 20-25% chance. I remember when we got in Teejax. Someone's lost a sock there. Someone's lost two socks. Better than losing one actually. I think it was here somewhere further down. Yeah it was past this. Maybe it was quite a lot further down. I just remembered that there was an ant's nest nearby which is probably not there anymore. Was it here? Are you sure? I see it. Yeah I see it. Look at that. I was lucky. Such a small little bit of dirt on there. Oh fantastic. You happy? Yeah these things are quite expensive. You want to go inside it again? No let's go before we lose anything else. Should we do a selfie? Okay. Okay ready? I don't know if you can. Three, two, one. It's a video so. So that's about it for this video and thank you for making it this far. I really appreciate the comments that have been left on the channel in previous videos and also over on Instagram. It's a real testament to how friendly the film community is. So I'll just leave you with a few photos we took on our last evening in Calgary and also a few photos of the sunrise taken from our hotel window. It really made the 5 a.m alarm worth getting up for and turned out to be some of my favorite photos of the whole trip. And I almost forgot, legend has it that train is still rolling through Morancekirk.