Patrick Viau

03/13/2024

Went out to the mountains with and for the first time since November. This is the longest stretch I went without picking up my camera since I started photography back in 2015. I was pleasantly surprised at how much snow is left in the mountains, it is clearly still winter over there! Hopefully I manage to get a couple more shots of the winter landscapes before it melts away, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to the warmer season.

Thanks for stoping by, cheers!

02/08/2024

Storms just hit different in the mountains. Once the rain ended, the clouds started breaking and allowing some light to come through which made for such dramatic scenes. I was watching the sky transform just as I was getting off the highway to get onto the Icefield Parkway and I couldn't help myself, I had to pull over and capture this scene unfold over Mount Temple.

01/24/2024

Finally got a chance to capture these little frost flowers back in November before the lake got covered with snow. As me and were driving up to the lake, we were going through a bunch of low clouds that offered no visibility whatsoever and had us worried that it would be a total flop. But once we arrived at the lake, we were faced with different problem, not a single cloud in sight. We pushed on and found our compositions just in case mother nature decided to spoil us with a show and sure enough, as the sun was rising, these soft wispy clouds appeared just in time to catch the last bit of colour. It wasn't the epic conditions we were hoping for, but it is still a win in my book!

12/27/2023

Every time I’ve been to this place, the forecast looked good for a potential sunset. But once I get there, it’s always the same story, the fog rolls in and the chances of a sunset become zero. However, I feel that even without the epic conditions or the mountainous background this location still looks amazing and would even go as far as saying that it looks better as the fog simplifies the scene and removes a lot of the visual noise.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Wishing you all a lovely holiday season! Cheers!

12/05/2023

Took this ins September of last year and forgot all about it until now. I don't usually like to shoot mid day as the light tends to be too harsh but the overcast sky cancelled that problem. Despite the flat light, I think the fall foliage being reflected in the perfectly still water was too beautiful not to capture.

11/29/2023

I didn't manage to get much hiking done this year but this hike defenitely made up for it when it came to kicking my ass. I have never had my legs cramp up so much during a hike and I must have quit about a hundred times. But I'm glad I won my most epic mental war to date and kept going because the views from the top were absolutely amazing. It also helped that I have enough of an ego to not want to look like too much of a wimp in front of and as they made their way up that final stretch effortlessly.

Big thanks to for taking this shot of me as I tried not to cry about the fact we still had to hike all the way back to the car.

11/23/2023

I've always found this location to be a difficult one to photograph. The first thing I would do whenever I would arrive here is go to the shore and try to find rocks or logs to use as foreground and have the mountains reflected in the lake. But as soon as I would get home and look at my pictures, I always found them to be lacking a little something, they simply did not capture the full beauty of this location. It also did not help that I would arrive just a few minutes before or right when the light would start happening which left me scrambling like a headless chicken trying to find a composition.

I tried something a little different this time, I went the day before I was planing to shoot the sunrise and tried a bunch of different compositions. I usually try to simplify my compositions by trying to include less as I find that the saying "less is more" tends to be a good rule to follow when it comes to photography. But I soon realized that this is one of those times where the rule needs to be broken and the more I stepped back and away from the lake, the more interesting the scene became.

I hope you enjoy this image as much as I did taking it, thanks for stopping by!

11/02/2023

This is one of those locations that I like to revisit from time to time and experiment with different composition. I have posted a couple pictures from this place about a year and a half ago, but this is my favourite image I've gotten out of this location as of yet. I was able to climb down lower this time to eliminate the flat section of the creek between the fall in the background and the two falls in the foreground giving more depth to the scene and making the two falls in the foreground more prominent.

This was captured in a single exposure using the settings below
62mm
2/5 second
f14
ISO 80

10/14/2023

Considering how challenging photographing this location has been to me, in September of last year, I completely lucked out and got a full 12h of perfect conditions to shoot the sunset which I already posted some time ago, the Milky Way (this image) a couple hours later and the sunrise the next morning. After letting this image sit for the past 13 months, I think I'm done letting this one incubate and it's time I finally get around to posting it.

I experimented with a different technique this time so I could have as little noise as possible which is usually the case with astro photography because of the high ISO needed. I made sure I got there well ahead of time, even before the sunset so I could find a good composition while it was still bright out. Once I found my shot, I set up the camera and waited for blue hour to come so I could take 2 exposures (focus stack) of the foreground and mountains which allowed me to keep the ISO low and have a clean image but still properly exposed. Then without moving the camera, I waited for the blue hour to pass so the sky would be dark enough to see the Milky Way and captured another exposure for the sky and blended the 3 images in post.

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers!

09/14/2023

This is probably my favourite image from when I came face to face with a herd of rams during a hike in Waterton Lakes National Park last year. As teh herd started to make their way around me and up the mountain, this cute little bu**er understood his assignment and stopped on this rocky ledge to strike a pose for me. A couple seconds after capturing this image, one of the older rams came back for him and off they went into the distance.

Thanks for stopping by!

Camera settings
20mm
1/1600 second
f4
ISO 100

09/01/2023

Finally getting around to edit my backlog of pictures, dating all the way back to last September. This spot is more of a sunrise location but I have yet to find the motivation to do that hike at stupid o'clock so I can be there on time for the sunrise. I settled for a sunset instead and didn't get much as far as sunsets are concerned, but the sky was nice and dramatic, and the water was far too calm not to capture this beautiful autumn scene reflected on the perfectly still lake.

Camera Settings (focus stack of 3 pictures)
20mm
4 sec
f/11
ISO 31

08/22/2023

I don't shoot much wildlife, but that's not because it doesn't interest me, I just don't have a long enough lens. The longest lens I have is 200mm and you still have to get pretty damn close to whatever animal you want to photograph to fill the frame with it which makes it difficult and dangerous in some cases.

But on our last hike, we came across these marmots in the meadow and I could not help myself and take a few pictures of them once they got within a few meters from us. I shot this image at 200mm and f4 aperture for a shallow depth of field but not too shallow so the whole head can be in focus. With the sun being low and the smoke from the wildfires, I had to bring up my ISO slightly to 250 to allow me to have a shutterspeed of 1/500th of a second so I could eliminate any motion blur from either the marmot moving or me being unable to stand perfectly still when I take my pictures.

08/02/2023

If there is one thing I have learned since we moved out west is that the only predictable thing about the mountains is how unpredictable they are. Back in March, we drove out to Banff to revisit a location we tried to shoot the sunset the weekend before but failed. During the drive there, the conditions seemed promising, there was just enough clouds and it seemed clear West of where we were going.

Once we got to the parking, we got out of the car and started to get ready for our little hike to get to the spot and just as we were about to about our hike, this massive snowstorm came out from behind the mountains and in a matter of seconds we went from a beautiful clear day to a complete witheout. We decided not to stick around, got back in the car and started driving with the hopes of getting ahead of the storm and finding a spot to shoot before the storm caught on. We ended up stopping at Bow Lake with only about 5 minutes to spare to find a composition before the sun set and the storm arrived. I was running around like a headless chicken trying to find a shot and then came across this little section of exposed ice. I did not waste any more time, setup the tripod and started taking shots and adjusting until I was happy with my composition. Litterally 1 minute after taking this picture, the storm caught on and we could not longer see the mountain across the lake which made it a long and stressful drive home.

This image is a focus stack of 2 pictures with the camera settings below:
20 mm
1/8 second
f11
ISO 64

06/02/2023

Back in March we had quite an epic show of Auroras here in Alberta. The lights were so strong that even once the clouds rolled in, they could still be seen through the clouds and it did not matter what direction you looked, they were everywhere! It is very hard to describe the level of excitment I felt as the lights started to appear. We were very lucky to get this to experience this on our first time out. Big thanks to for inviting us to tag along for the chase! It was quite a learning experience for me, the technical side of shooting Auroras is completely different than what I'm used to. I'm also more of the type to scout out locations and plan my pictures well ahead of time, but with Auroras you just have to go with the flow as it just does whatever the hell it wants when it wants. But it was fun nonetheless!

I didn't really expect to come back home with a picture that night, I saw it more as chance to learn and experiment with different focal lengths and camera settings since this was my first time shooting the Auroras. I don't consider this a portfolio shot but I can't say I'm disapointed in this picture of the lights dancing above Mount Rundle at all.

Camera Settings
105mm
5 seconds
f2.8
ISO 2500

05/03/2023

I keep telling myself I need to be more active on here and post more often. Yet, my last post was all the way back in February. It doesn't help that I hit a bit of a creative rut this winter which has caused me to barely shoot at all this winter and even edit pictures I took back in the fall. But with the warmer weather now here, I'm starting to feel the itch to go out and shoot again, which is refreshing! While I get around to editing my backlog of pictures, here's one I took back in November.

I had to go to this location twice in two days to get the shot. I really struggled to find a good compisition the first time. But when I got there the following day, these little pieces of ice that weren't there the first day really caught my attention and made for the perfect foreground element to complete balance out the scene.

Because the ice in the foreground was so close to the lens, I had to focus stack a total of 5 images in order to get everything sharp. 4 of these images were for the foreground alone, and then one final image for the background. I hope you enjoy the image and thanks for stopping by and having a look!

Camera settings
28mm
f11
1 second
ISO 64

02/02/2023

Ever since we moved to Alberta, I have wanted to shoot the Milky Way over the mountains. It only took a year and a half to finally getting around to get some astro shots in. Although the core of the Milky Way is below the horizon in the fall, which is when I took this picture, I do like that it is visible much earlier than during the long summer days. What better place than Moraine Lake to take my first Milky Way picture since 2020.

I had to take 3 exposures for this image. The first one for the sky and the other two is a focus stack of the mountains and foreground.

Camera settings
Exposure 1:
14 mm
15 sec
f 2.8
ISO 3600

Exposure 2 & 3:
14 mm
120 sec
f 2.8
ISO 2000
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01/10/2023

This is one of the rare times I showed up to a location well ahead of time, and got a nice little rewarded for it. I got to the lake to shoot the Milky Way, but got there while the sun was still out. Thought I would take my time, find a composition I liked while there was light out. After finding my comp, I went back to the truck and prepared dinner and as I was eating, some clouds rolled in as the sun was setting and then boom! The sky lit up with all these beautiful colours. So I panicked a little and drank the rest of my spaghetti, there was no time to chew it down and ran back to the spot I found a bit earlier to snap a few stills.

This is a focus stack of 2 images shot with the following settings
14 mm
2/5 seconds
f8
ISO 64

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12/22/2022

I took some time off from work back in the fall so I could take full advantage of the larch season this year. For the first week, mother nature really was not cooperating with me whatsoever and it was starting to get to me. Then, on the Sunday, I went to Kananaskis simply to scout a new location, because the conditions were not promising at all that day and just as I was experimenting with some compositions, when I lease expected it, the sky lit up like there was no tomorrow and started a streak of 5 or 6 days of absolutely amazing sunrise/sunet conditions, which totally made up for the s**tty first week. ⁠
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It was a windy day so the water was not still whatsoever, but it still reflected the sunset colours as it danced and crashed on the shore, therefore I call this one A Dance of Fire and Ice.⁠
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Thanks for stopping by and I wish you all happy holidays! Cheers!

12/07/2022

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a sucker for waterfalls. So when we came accross this beautiful waterfall at the beginning of our hike back in August, I took a mental note to stop on the way back when the sun would be lower and offer a softer light. On our way back, the light was perfect so we stopped to photograph the falls.⁠
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On the next day, I was so excited to transfer the images on my computer to edit them only to realize, I completely missed the focus on my background shot. I was pretty disappointed to say the least! But whatever, these things can happen after a long and difficult hike like this one and you just want to hurry up and keep going so you can go home. ⁠
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So I ended up making the two hour drive the next weekend just so I could retake this picture and believe me, I double and triple checked my pictures on the back of my camera to make sure they were sharp this time.⁠
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I call this one Stairway to Heaven, because I see the cascades as a set of stairs leading you to what is my favourite location in the Rockies so far, offering majestic views of the surrounding peaks from the top. I hope you enjoy this image and thanks for stopping by!⁠
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This is a focus stack of two pictures shot with the following camera settings:⁠⁠
29mm⁠
f/8⁠
1/3 second⁠
ISO 100

11/29/2022

This is a rare siting of a wild Parvuus Vitulicus in his natural habitat. This creature is more commonly known as Patrick Viau and can often be found in the Canadian Rockies. Although it is not recommended to feed the wildlife, some people have had success luring him out of hiding with chocolate. Beware though, if you try to trick him with some 90% chocolate instead of milk chocolate, he has been known to become aggressif. Try at your own risk!⁠
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Picture taken by

11/17/2022

Before moving out here a year and a half ago, all I heard of was Banff National Park. Little did I know there was this equally beautiful area that is Kananaskis Country. It's crazy to think that a lot of people that are not from here, don’t even know about this place. Kananaskis is absolutely stunning and there is no shortage of hikes to explore that offer breath taking views, from short easy ones to some more "question your life choices" types of hikes. Here we are a year and a half later and I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of the Canadian Rockies.⁠
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We under estimated how much time it would take us to get to the section of the ridge we wanted to be for the sunset and as a result, we were no where near where we wanted to be when the light kicked off. So I scrambled like a headless chicken trying to find a composition ⁠and found these little wildflowers which I believe are called Sulphur Cinquefoil, and thought they would make the perfect foreground to go against the epic golden light that was hitting the valley in the background. The wind started to ramp up once we got to this section of the ridge which made it a bit difficult to get a shot while the flowers were standing still, but it ended up calming down just long enough for me to snap a few shots. ⁠
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This is a focus stack of 4 pictures, 3 for the foreground due to how close the flowers were to the lens and 1 for the background. Because the sun was getting very close to the horizon and was out of the frame, the scene did not have a high dynamic range so it simplified the shot as it did not require to take darker exposures in order to preserve the highlights.⁠
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Camera settings:⁠
24 mm⁠
1/40 second⁠
f11⁠
ISO 64

11/01/2022

This place has to be my favourite location to date. It wasn't easy to get to with 35 lbs of camera gear on my back but it sure was worth it! The wildflowers were also in full bloom back in July which added some nice colour contrast to the scene along with some snow that did not get around to melting yet.

Since we shot this at sunset, that meant we had to make our way back in the darkness and as soon as we made it back down to the meadow, we came across 2 sets of eyes looking straight at us. Whatever animals were there, they were right in the middle of the trail and they were just outside the reach of our headlamps so we couldn't tell what these eyes belonged to. And to make matters worse, a mother grizzly and her cub were spotted on this trail a couple days before. So playing it safe, we waited and made a bunch of loud noises for a good 10 minutes hoping they would get spooked and leave, but they were not budging whatsoever. In fact, they even took a couple steps in our direction. It was getting late, I was getting hungry and tired, and we still had a good 2 hours left to go so eventually we got fed up and just said, f**k it!

I took out the bear spray, removed the safety clip and we slowly started to move forward, ready to spray the s**t out of whatever was there should it come at us. As we made our way closer, our lights were getting closer to reaching them, until finally, we got close enough for our lights to reveal what we were dealing with and that's when the fear and adrenaline immediately got replaced by laughter. There we were, three grown ass adults, scared s**tless of two little deers.

This is a focus stack of 4 pictures in order to get everything sharp and the camera settings used were:
20mm
f11
1/6 second
ISO 64

10/28/2022

Happy belated Canada day! Ok ok, I realise I'm 4 months late in posting this picture I took of the Calgary skyline during the Canada day celebrations. I don't often photograph cityscapes and this was my first time photographing fireworks, but it is always fun to experiment with something new.⁠ Scroll right to see the panorama in slightly better resolution.
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This picture was accomplished by taking 3 different exposures in order to work around the high dynamic range from the city lights.⁠
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Thanks for stopping by!⁠
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Camera settings:⁠
31 mm⁠
f9⁠
8 seconds⁠
ISO 64

10/12/2022

The alarm went off at 5am that morning, I poked my head out of the tent to have a look at the sky to see if it was even worth getting up to shoot the sunrise and all I saw were some thick clouds everywhere and decided that it was not worth it and laid back down to go back to sleep. Then, my loving wife, AKA , gave me the little push I needed to get out of bed and try our luck. So we got out of the tent, I found a compisition I liked eventhough I didn't think we would get any light and then as I was waiting for the moment to say "I told you so", a tiny break in the clouds to the East allowed a narrow beam of light to come through and deliver such a dramatic scene worthy of a Lord of the Ring movie scene. Needless to say, I was robbed of my "I told you so" moment, but this is one of those times I was happy to be wrong!⁠
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Focus stack of 3 images (2 for the foreground & 1 for the background).⁠
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Camera settings:⁠
20mm⁠
f11⁠
0.6 sec⁠
ISO 64

10/04/2022

I have been very unactive on here for the past months and have such a backlog of pictures I have yet to post. To be honest though, it's been nice to have a little break from social media and not pressure myself to get an epic picture everytime I go out to shoot. I have been able to work on my craft a bit more without this pressure and experiment a little bit too. ⁠
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That being said, here's a cute shot of a mare and her baby I took back in April. On our way back from Kananaskis, we saw a group of horses with the mountains in the background making a perfect backdrop, so just had to pull over and snap a few shots.⁠
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Camera settings⁠
200mm⁠
f4⁠
1/500 of a second⁠
ISO 64

08/04/2022

After almost 2 years since my last video, I’m back with a new video! This time I go out and shoot a little known but beautiful waterfall near Ottawa, Ontario. I hope you enjoy the video, thanks for watching!

After almost 2 years since my last video, I’m back with a new video! This time I go out and shoot a little known but beautiful waterfall near Ottawa, Ontario...

07/14/2022

A month ago I went to explore a new location in Waterton National Park with the hopes of maybe getting at a picture of the landscape. As I was hiking, I was so focused on my thoughts and looking at where I was stepping that I was totally unaware of my surroundings. Then I heard a faint noise of someone or something stepping on a rocky soil, so I finally took my eyes off the ground and looked up in front of me only to realize I was 30 feet from a herd of big horn sheeps. They are pretty common here in the Rockies, but I rarely come accross them out on the trail, I usually see them on the road licking the salt from the ashphalt which doesn't make for good pictures, so I didn't waste the opportunity and took out the camera to snap a few shots of them as they made their way around me and up the mountain.⁠
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Camera settings⁠
195 mm⁠
1/1600 second⁠
f4⁠
ISO 100

06/29/2022

Finally managed to capture a photo I am happy with after being stuck in a rut for the last two months. We've struggled with a lot of rain for the past months here in Alberta which only added insult to injury. But at last, the rain stopped so I took a little last minute trip to Drumheller and I'm glad I did because the sunset really showed up!⁠
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Normally the park is quite dry but because of all the recent rain, the vegetation was very lush and green, and it contrasted the desert scene quite nicely. Add the beautiful golden sunset light beaming through the canyon and it brought some life into the scene.⁠
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This scene had a very high dynamic range and with the foreground being so close to the lens, it made for a technical picture to shoot. It is a focus stack of 3 images. Additionaly, I waited for the sun to get closer to the horizon for the light to be less harsh and the clouds to have more colours to snap an extra exposure for the sky. I also used a polarizing filter to remove glare and make the greens pop more.⁠
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Camera settings⁠
26 mm⁠
f13⁠
1/8 second ⁠
ISO 64