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Location
This photo was taken at a place called Moose Lake, just west of Jasper, Alberta. It's actually in the province of BC.
Funny enough, it was actually taken from the passenger window of a vehicle moving at 100 km/hr.
Time
Just after noon, around 1 or 2 o'clock when the sun seems to be the brightest.
Lighting
The lighting on this day was fantastic for the style I was going for at the time. There was a thin layer of clouds creating a nice diffusion effect while still allowing enough light through to shoot at a high shutter speed. I'm a big fan of soft natural lighting for all of my daytime photos.
Equipment
For this, I used a Fujifilm XF55-200mm F3.5-4.8 mounted to the body of my Fujifilm XT4.
I love this lens for its small size and long focal range. Fujifilm X-series cameras use an APS-C crop sensor, so 200mm is equivalent to 300mm on a full frame system. It's one that I rarely leave at home when heading out to do nature photography.
Shooting handheld out of a car window is never ideal, and I love this photo because it worked out despite that.
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Inspiration
The first few snowfalls in the rocky mountains are always the most beautiful. There's only a few weeks each year that the water hasn't also frozen over, so I always try to make the most of it. I'm fascinated by large scale reflections like this so I couldn't turn down the opportunity to capture this one.
Editing
I processed this image as a raw file using Capture One (a superior alternative to Lightroom for Fuji users, in my opinion).
For the original photo I had a pink tint and white balance applied for a scene I was shooting previously, so the first thing I did was bring back the natural whites.
From here, I try to keep things very simple to maintain realism. I used a tone curve to lift the blacks and dial in contrast, and dropped the luminance on the blues to give it a deeper feel.
In my camera bag
I like to keep things light, so it's a constant challenge to pack a kit that offers lots of versatility.
To cover my bases, I like to bring an XF16-55mm F2.8 in addition to the XF55-200mm F3.5-4.8 used to take this photo. The large-ish aperture in the 16-55 makes this lens useful for portraits as well as low light settings,
It's also a lot of fun to bring a prime or two along for the ride. Lately, the Laowa 9mm F2.8 and Fujinon XF23mmF2 have been my favorites.
All 4 of these lenses fit comfortably into a 10L peak design sling bag thanks to the aps-c form factor.
Feedback
All I can recommend is to shoot as much as possible. To me this means not only prioritizing time to photograph things, but in the moment taking pictures that you think might not work out.
Also, if you haven't tried a telephoto lens yet, they are amazing for landscape photography in the mountains.
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