We are often taking road trips from the west coast of British Columbia, through the Rocky Mountains and into central Alberta. Usually, we are trying to accomplish the 16+ hour drive as quickly as possible so we have rarely stopped for photography. On this occasion, we specifically targeted Abraham Lake as an area to explore. 

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The sun light was almost gone by the time we got there. There were no clouds in the sky, it was August, and about 9 pm a lake sunset photo was just not going to work.  

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When the conditions are not ideal, I turn to small scenes like this. Ideally, we would have arrived at this location later in the year - early October, to capture the vibrant colour of the leaves as they change to yellow, orange and auburn, contrasted against the blue waters of Abraham Lake, but the leaves were still very much green. 

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What I did enjoy though, was the trunks of the aspens in the long, summer grass. I really felt an urge to lay in the grass, look up at the blowing leaves of the aspens and drift off to sleep as the warm wind swept through. It had been a long drive and a nap here would have been welcomed.

 

This photo was taken handheld at a higher ISO setting because I wanted to freeze the grass in the wind so that it wasn't a blurry mess. It was taken on the way back from the lake side to the car, right before we got back on the road and continued for another 4 hours to Central Alberta.