Vacation Pictures...

I finally have my July family vacation pictures all up online! I don't have a good excuse for not having done this sooner, but it matters less now that it is done. So, enjoy.

Walt Disney World

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Daytona Beach, Florida

Deathwing!

Early this morning Edmontonians woke up to an incredibly orange sky that prompted many comments of the apocalyptic variety on twitter. It's hard to tell from the pictures but the air itself appeared to have an orange glow to it, everything in my bedroom when I first woke up looked orange but our window is west facing. I've never seen anything quite like it.

These pictures were taken around 5:00am in west Edmonton. You can see my other shots HERE.

Slave Lake Pictures

I finally got all of my Slave Lake photos loaded up into Flickr. You can see them HERE.

Don't Forget About Slave Lake!

"In all the years I've been doing this job, I haven't seen anything with this kind of speed and devastation."
- Len MacCharles, incident commander

"When you first see the devastation, it's a numbing feeling. It's going to take some time to get our community back."
- Slave Lake Mayor Pillay-Kinee

As we hear less and less in the traditional media about the efforts ongoing in Slave Lake, Alberta, I wanted to remind everyone that much help is still needed there. The Canadian Red Cross has committed to the recovery process for the next two years and you can help fund that support for the residents of Slave Lake with a financial donation (some agency's will continue to take material donations as well).

On May 15th 2011 a wildfire, fueled by winds of up to 150km, burned through the northern town of Slave Lake, destroying 40% of the town. 374 homes were destroyed and another 52 were damaged. The province declared a level four emergency – the highest on its scale - and more than 7000 people fled in an immediate evacuation, leaving everything behind. After 10 days some people were allowed to come back, but many still can not.

A month after the fire there is still much work to be done in Slave Lake. The Red Cross is still registering people and last I heard there were 200 families that the town had not yet re-connected with. Thank you for keeping Slave Lake in your thoughts as the recovery process continues.

HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE!

Total Lunar Eclipse

Winter Solstice Sunset

Solstice Moonrise (over WEM)

The Tree is Trimmed!

We put up the Christmas Tree Sunday evening. Decorating the Tree is one of my favourite Christmas rituals... We have ornaments from each of our childhoods, our parents, grandparents and godparents, including homemade decorations. We divide the ornaments into piles according to whom they belong to and then we take turns adding them to the tree - recalling the people, times and stories associated with each one. For me the most important thing about Christmas is family and creating more memories spending time together.   

We Remember

We attended the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph at Edmonton's City Hall. This is where Wesley's unit, The Loyal Edmonton Regiment, parades for Remembrance Day. You can see my other pictures from the ceremony HERE.

Allie Wojtaszek Photography

Introducing my new facebook fan page - Allie Wojtaszek Photography. Please stop on by and check it out. If you like what you see make sure you click the "LIKE" button so you can see future additions to the site and (if you want to) participate in the discussions.

Ottawa Pictures = Done!

Stone lions on guard in Sparks Street Mall.

I finally finished processing the pictures from our summer trip to Ottawa and got them up online. You can view all of them by clicking HERE.

Ottawa is a beautiful city to take pictures in. There is so much to see and so many different ways to see it! I hope you get a chance to check them out.

Elk Island National Park

Today Duncan and I spent the day in Elk Island National Park. We've been a few times but never in early Fall before - it seemed to us as the tree's were turning yellow right before our eyes. It is the beginning of a beautiful season.

Elk Island is only 45 kms away from Edmonton. It took us a few years to discover it ourselves but now I can't get enough of it. It really is a treasure - home to Bison, Elk, Moose, Deer, Beavers, Porcupines, Skunks, Coyotes, etc - it is the perfect place to go for a day trip or camera date. Great trails to hike and you can even take your dog as long as it remains on a leash. I highly recommend it.

Looks Like Morning in Your Eyes

Good Morning Edmonton!

I woke Duncan up at about 5:00am on Sunday so we could go watch the sunrise over Edmonton together. Although I seldom see it (as I am a night owl rather than a morning person) I love this time of a summer day.

This is one of many photographs I took as the sun rose but I haven't had a chance to process the others yet. When I do they will be up on my Flickr.

Father Can You Hear Me?

Kananaskis Country is beautiful country

Once we left Canmore (our trip in early June) we decided to drive through the mountains, along the Spray-Dorien/Smith Trail, into Kananaskis Country. Duncan and I drove part of this roadway ten years ago but we've never done the entire trip. Needless to say it was beautiful, but better than the more populated touristy areas in the mountains there was hardly another soul. Just us and the wildlife. We stopped along Spray Lake (pictured above) and the silence was wonderful - just the wind in the trees and some loons calling to each other across the lake. These are the types of places in the world that soothe me and put me at peace. In the absence of noise you can hear... everything.

If you're interested, pictures from our Kananaskis Country road trip can be found HERE.

Faith is an island in the setting sun...

But proof is the bottom line for everyone.
~Paul Simon

I'm Photoblogging!

Don't forget to check out my other blog at fotojournal.com. It's direct link is here.

Also, the links to the left of this post house my other homes on the web, come along and visit me there!

Introducing fotojournal

I have a new blog at fotojournal, which is specifically for photographers and photoblogging and is a gorgeous looking site (and an easy interface to use). I highly recommend it to anyone who might be interested - please go check it out.

Anniversary Trip Part 2

We flew over the Columbia Icefields on the way home

I finally got the pictures from the second half of our anniversary trip in July finished and posted (Part one was our trip to Victoria). We took the train up island, from Victoria to Courtenay BC, to visit with friends and explore areas where I'd never been, like Mt Washington. It was a great choice, lovely and relaxing, like we got two trips in one. In a way I guess that's what we did! You can view the pictures here.

Anniversary Trip Part 1 - Victoria BC

We celebrated our wedding anniversary with an adventure to Vancouver Island in British Columbia. It turned out to be both a perfect bookend to our anniversary trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia last year and a great way to be reminded of our Honeymoon trip five years ago.

The Fairmont Empress Hotel

The Empress Hotel is part of what makes Victoria's inner harbour and downtown area. I couldn't resist taking many pictures of the empress from all angles. The Edwardian château-style hotel was designed by Francis Rattenbury (the same man who designed the Parliament buildings) for Canadian Pacific Hotels and completed in 1908.

The BC Parliament Buildings at night

At night the BC Parliament buildings are lit up by over 3000 lightbulbs, making it the most spectacular part of the Victoria night skyline (it dominates the day time skyline as well). This is the iconic view that most people associate with Victoria.

Traditional Victorian carriage rides

We almost took a carriage ride around Victoria... It really was fun to be like a tourist in Victoria while on our vacation, doing as the tourists do. But since I grew up on Vancouver Island I just couldn't bring myself to pay the amount of money they were charging the tourists for those carriage rides (99.00 each for 15 minutes!) so every time we did go to get a ride I changed my mind!

Whales are a sight to behold

In sharp contrast to the carriage rides the money we paid to go on our whale watching tour was worth every penny - and I'd recommend anyone going to Victoria do it. For three hours we zipped around the waters off of Vancouver Island (and the San Jaun Islands in the USA) viewing spectacular scenery, jumping the wakes of bigger boats and, of course, enjoying the wildlife. We saw Killer Whales (two resident Orca pods that we stayed with for an hour), seals and porpoises (which were too shy for me to get a picture of). So much fun I wanted to do it again as soon as I got back.

The totems of Thunderbird Park

Thunderbird Park is an awesome greenspace (of which Victoria has a lot) beside the Royal BC Museum and across from the Empress Hotel. It's a lovely place and we enjoyed laying in the grass here together, absorbing the sunshine and watching the people go by.

A Hero's bagpipes return home

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Victoria on our next trip was to reconnect with the history of my unit, The Canadian Scottish Regiment, which has it's home and Battalion Headquarters here. In particular I really wanted to see Piper Richardson's bagpipes, which had recently been found. Richardson won the Victoria Cross for "most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty when, prior to attack, he obtained permission from his Commanding Officer to play his company "over the top". As the Company approached the objective, it was held up by very strong wire and came under intense fire, which caused heavy casualties and demoralised the formation for the moment. Realising the situation, Piper Richardson strode up and down outside the wire, playing his pipes with the greatest coolness. The effect was instantaneous. Inspired by his splendid example, the company rushed the wire with such fury and determination that the obstacle was overcome and the position captured. Later, after participating in bombing operations, he was detailed to take back a wounded comrade and prisoners. After proceeding about 200 yards, Piper Richardson remembered that he had left his pipes behind. Although strongly urged not to do so, he insisted on returning to recover his pipes." I've often thought to myself I would follow bagpipes anywhere and this piece of history has always been close to my heart.

As you can see we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in Victoria (it's taken me this long to get the photos up online!), which was the first part of our trip. You can see the rest of our Victoria Trip here. Part 2 of the trip should be up soon.

Spring in the Canadian Rockies

I finally finished getting all of the photos up from our weekend trip to Banff National Park in April. Duncan and I had an amazing weekend exploring the park together and we really did manage to make the most of our two days there together. Here are some highlights of the trip:

From the Top of the World

I highly recommend a trip up Sulphur Mountain on the Gondola if you are visiting Banff National Park. This was my first trip up and I found it to be the highlight of my trip - the views were amazing! In this picture you can see the Bow River snaking through the Townsite of Banff on its way to Calgary, the famed Banff Springs Hotel and Lake Minnewanka in the distance (top left).

Banff Springs Hotel with Wapiti

Spring is the perfect time of year to see Elk herds. This group of Elk we watched forde the Bow River while we were visiting the Bow Falls. We walked over through the Banff Springs Hotel Golf Course and caught up with them to take this shot. Sulphur Mountain can be seen in the background of this picture, where we also enjoyed some time in the hot springs.

Into the Wardrobe

We found this old/abandoned freestanding gateway alongside the Bow River whilst exploring. We couldn't resist going through it - and into the magical world that awaits those with an adventurous spirit in the heart of the Canadian Rockies...

It's still winter at Lake Louise

We traveled up to Lake Louise to see the Glacier as we haven't been there for about 4 years. We were only half surprised to find that it was snowing there - it is a bit higher in elevation than Banff. The view of the Glacier was mostly obscured by the snow, but it was gorgeous anyway. We enjoyed an amazing meal at the Chateau Lake Louise and headed back towards Banff as the areas around the Chateau were closed due to the spring/winter conditions.

Life on the Edge

The Mountain Sheep of the Rocky Mountains are fabulous creatures and we were lucky enough to find a large herd while driving the Lake Minnewanka Road loop after we returned from Lake Louise. Living remnants of the ice age, these big horn sheep are uniquely suited to living in the Rocky Mountains.

You can see more pictures from our Banff Trip here.

Why is the Sky Red?

During the day the sun warms the surface of the Earth and creates wind which lifts dust particles into the air and upper atmosphere. The intense red and orange hues of the sky at sunset are mainly caused by the scattering of sunlight across these particulates floating around. This phenomenon can be further explained through scientific understanding as the process of Discrete Dipole Approximation, the Mie Theory or in some cases by the Rayleigh Scattering of sunlight by air molecules rather than dust particles (Rayleigh is responsible for why the sky is blue).

Sunset goes through many stages of brilliance as the sun disappears. Some of them most intense moments only last for seconds - after I had got back in the car from taking these photos all of the dark reds and oranges had already faded. You can see more of my sunset and sunrise pictures here.

Finally...

I have uploaded the pictures of our Halifax trip in August of this year. You can see them by clicking here: Nova Scotia 2008.