Taking the Road Most Traveled - Across Canada, Day 56 of 92

For a long time on this trip I avoided taking pictures at Vermilion Lakes, which, located less than five minutes from Banff, is one of the most-photographed locations in the Canadian Rockies. It's so easy to get to (you could walk there from the town), and it can be gorgeous at both sunrise and sunset, with plenty of water (year-round because of a couple of hot-spots that keep channels open in the ice) to reflect iconic Mt. Rundle. The town of Banff is nestled in between Rundle and the treeline, hidden in the daytime - only the lights give it away at night, and even the town's light pollution can be photogenic. Yeah, it's a pretty sweet spot to stop and take photos... which is why EVERYONE does. I thought to myself during my stay in the mountains that I was going to be clever, take Robert Frost's advice and not waste my time at an oversaturated spot when I could be out breaking "new" ground on less-traveled roads (as much as it's possible to do so in the Rockies).

That was all well and good, but one day (incidentally, my first morning with the Nikon D850 after breaking the D750 while shooting elk...but that's a story for another time) I was driving back to Banff after rising early for the pre-dawn moon (shared yesterday) and decided that I might as well stop by Vermilion Lakes for the sunrise...

I'm glad I did.

Turns out there's a reason people never get tired of taking pictures at Vermilion Lakes. I'm really excited to share these! I've had them in Lightroom for over a year and finally got around to processing them tonight. Fresh off the press:

Yup.

It was, as they say, "alright."

And so I went back the next evening. My only regret was that I didn't have my skates with me:

It's surprising how many different compositions you can create here using the snow, ice and frost as foreground elements:

The sunset colours paled in comparison to the sunrise from the previous morning, so I threw on a 10-stop neutral density filter to make a multi-minute exposure to blur the clouds:

I don't know if there's a moral to this story, but if there is, maybe it's something like "while it's great to explore new territory, don't shun the tried-and-true locations - there's a reason they're popular, and if you manage to create something unique, it will be all the sweeter." These turned out to be some of my favourite images from the whole trip. :)