Andrew Strain Photography » Landscape

Wedgemount Lake, 2008

Strain — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 16:03:39 +0000

One of my most-read and searched for blog entries is a trip report for a hike up to Wedgemount Lake in 2008. I’m heading out the door for the 2010 edition right now… she’s gonna be cold but the weather is looking good.

Here’s a photo from 2008 – this will be joining the photo from my last post on the walls of the Blackbird Bakery sometime next week.

Coastal Summer

Strain — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:58:30 +0000

Continuing on last weeks theme – summer in the mountains of coastal BC.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold…

Strain — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:26:23 +0000

…To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

-JRR Tolkien

Spring Touring – Cerise Creek

Strain — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:36:00 +0000

I went on a touring mission up Cerise Creek / Mt Joffre with a couple friends last week. Conditions were… interesting over the first half of the approach, where for the first time since I bought them I wasn’t cursing the uselessness of my snowshoes. The crampons bit into the choppy ice of the forest floor far more effectively than climbing skins, but I’m still buying a splitboard this fall. Snowshoes suck.

We thought the snow might be a little sloppy up high, but avoiding sun-baked aspects led to a late April powder harvest. Gotta love that spring crop!

Cayoosh Creek

Strain — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 06:35:44 +0000

It’s been a long time – months – since I took the time to shoot some photos for no reason other than to shoot photos. No travel budget, no media pass… no pressure. It was a refreshing change.

Went for a drive over the Duffey with my dad the other day and stopped along Cayoosh Creek to check out some rock (in case you wondered where I got that from…). I let the old man do the heavy lifting while I got artistic… I felt kinda bad until I realized he was shooting photos of me shooting photos. Apparently rocks aren’t the only thing that run in the family – flannel and gumboots have been a Strain fashion staple for decades.

Love is in the air

Strain — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:41:00 +0000

One fine day this summer, after running out of gas while cutting a helipad into the swampy permafrost near the confluence of the White and Yukon Rivers, I looked skyward from the pages of Dr Zhivago and instantly lunged for my bright yellow pelican case. I’m not usually one to see shapes in the clouds, but this particular formation was too perfect to not photograph.

I wasn’t planning on posting this shot but someone saw it on my iphone the other day and insisted that I make a postcard out of it. A blog post is close enough, I guess – call me in February for Valentines Day gifts…

It’s been a summer…

Strain — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:20:00 +0000

I’ve been gone from Vancouver for 2 and a half months now, and its time to go home. I’ve had some great adventures working in the Yukon – bears, helicopters, swamps and snowstorms. But, you can only be gone for so long before home comes calling… I’ll be in Vancouver on Monday night.

More photos and words to come when I have a little more time… also looking forward to getting back to a calibrated monitor back in the city. A few other photos are on my flickr.

Monarch Mtn

Strain — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:34:00 +0000

My spot in Atlin may be a little out of town, but it gives me a convenient head-start on the Monarch Mtn trail. I hauled up the trail last night, grouse grind style, to shoot some photos from the alpine at sunset. There’s no tram down to ease the knees, but there’s plenty of light to navigate by well after the sun finally disappears. Besides, you don’t get views like this from Grouse…

Looking south to Warm Bay and Teresa Island:

The town of Atlin:

The distinctive Mt Minto can be seen in the distance, rising above the north end of a glistening Atlin Lake…

Long Summer Days

Strain — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:13:00 +0000

A quick post of some photos from the last week or so… still lots of daylight to shoot/fish/hike (and work, of course)

Some more ND filter fun, as well as practice with another technique I rarely use, exposure blending (it’ll have to do til I pitch for a grad ND) – Atlin Mountain at [a very late PM] sunset:

Teresa Island gets hit by a mix of rain and sun as a storm tracks west:

A couple more photos after the jump:

The M.V. Tarahne sits on Atlin’s waterfront. Used to ferry tourists around the lake in her prime, these days she has been relegated to hosting the occasional afternoon tea:

Como Lake sunset:

Earlier that evening, we took my cousin to the lake and he caught his first fish, a nice little rainbow in a convenient single serving breakfast size:

I caught one too. Veronica Strain photo:

Lakes and Rainbows

Strain — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 03:37:00 +0000

I finally bought my fishing license yesterday, so naturally, I spent all evening on the lake trying to catch some supper. I even managed to find the time to play with my new neutral density filter and make some longer exposures in between casts. There’s plenty of daylight to do both up here (tomorrow is the longest day of the year, with nearly 18 hours of theoretical sun): the alpenglow shot was taken just after 11pm.

This is Como lake, a couple km’s north of Atlin. My current address is at the base of Monarch Mountain, in the background – haven’t hiked it since I’ve been here, but I’ve flown over a couple times on the way to/from work… close enough, right?

In the full post, you can see what happens to tasty rainbow trout when they die…

My sister caught the first fish of the day… I evened the score later.

Back at home, ready for gutting:

It’d been a while since I cleaned a fish, but I think I did alright.

Trout with a side of salmon? Yes please.

Picked clean: