We had gone to Provost, Alberta, to celebrate my mother-in-law’s seventy-ninth birthday. That being done, we head south towards Kirriemuir to the family farm to stay the night. I busted out some cameras once there, as is my wont.
My family and I actually lived in the area from about 2005 to 2014, nearly a decade. It was a long, gruelling decade and I was glad to eventually escape. I still miss the geography and the wonderful skies, but not most of the locals. There are some good ones to be sure, but they are outnumbered by those who are less so.
One thing I had always wanted to do when I lived there was shoot the area from the air. I got my chance Saturday evening using my photography drone. It was all that I expected and I may have to go back and do more. Maybe. I don’t know. It is outside of the zone of advanced emergency life support health care that my cardiologist has asked me to stay within. Most of my trips these days — like the one to Dinosaur Provincial Park — involve me carefully mapping response times of the helicopter ambulances. If they can’t reach me in time in an emergency, I try not to go on that trip. Going outside of my “zone” gives me massive anxiety now.
There are probably some equally good aerial shots outside of Strathmore if I put some effort into it, so I’ll have to try that first. It’s safer.
There were only a few trees and bushes blooming, not what I had expected or was hoping for. The cold and drought have been even more pronounced in East Central Alberta than in Strathmore. Upon reflection I realized I should not have been surprised. Toward my end of my time in the area I had come to believe that if there is a God, He hates the region. Nothing I have since since then disproves my theory.
Whatever. I had my R5 and my Helios lens so I went to work on the cherry blossoms, the apple blossoms, and a caragana bush that was in the right light.
The Canon EOS 7D that Ray left me also came along and I pulled it out to work the cherry blossoms. I also tried for the apple blossoms, but the wind was whipping them around too hard for me to get any shots that turned out. All in all, I came out of the day with some pixels in my bucket so that was a win.
I used a DJI Mini 3 drone for the sunset image, a Canon EOS R5 with a Helios 44m-2 58mm f2.0 lens, and a Canon EOS 7D with a 70-300mm EF IS USM lens stacked with a 12mm extension tube.
