BANFF in February --- Yeah, you heard me!

I love photography.  It's a passion of mine.  I read a lot about photography, I research techniques and tools - basically I try to get as much exposure as possible to the world of photography.

I subscribe to some magazines about photography, and one in particular runs a two page ad every month for something called the Mentor Series.  It's a company that arranges outings for like minded people, those that want to get that shot of a lifetime but don't really know where to start - or want the seminar feeling.  Before Christmas, they started running an ad for Banff National Park in Alberta.

One day, I came home from work and my wife had the magazine.  She said "you need to book this" and handed it to me, open to the page for the Banff trip.  Seemed like a lot of money to me at the time, but she was insistant - saying that it could be my Christmas and Birthday present all wrapped into one.  So I booked it.

The trip ran over the past two weeks, and man, was it ever worth the money.  The group was 30 people, plus two mentors and one organizer - our tour guide if you will.  Did they ever take good care of us.  Michelle from the Mentor Series was on the ball every day - our itinieary would change from day to day to deal with the weather (who wants to take a shot of a grey sky in the am).  She made sure things ran smooth and on time.

Our two mentors,  Layne Kennedyand Daniel J Cox were excellent.  They both had different styles, and would have different suggestions on how to make your pictures better.  It was an excellent experience by all accounts.

The way it works is that you shoot all day, take a dinner break, download your images, select 5, go to a digital review session with either Layne or Dan, get pointers from them, then do it all again the next day.  4 days of this.  It's more like work than a vacation, but how can it be work when it's something that you love?

The shots below are just a sample of the 200+ images I came away with.  I shot about 2000 images, but I weeded them out to this sample. 

Info hut in front of Lake Louise.  The lake itself was frozen, and the sky would not co-operate that day, but this gives you an idea of what it looked like.  Oh, and that's a mountain in the background in case you were wondering ... :-)

Michelle hired these three snow boarders to go up and down the mountain for us for about 2 hours.  Tough job, but someone's got to do it.. ;-)

Vermillion lakes at sunset.  There is no real conventional sunset in Banff, as it's too high and ringed by mountains.  But you do get some nice colour on clear days - this was not one of those days ... :-)

Alpineglow.  This is what goes for a sunrise.  The sun catches the top edge of the mountain.  Fleeting moment, lasts for about 10 minutes.  You better have your camera dialed in.