A Travel Photographer on the Canadian Prairies

Over the last 6 weeks I've found myself scouring the Canadian prairies in an effort to make up for some of the lost opportunities over the last year and a half. While some of this was planned, the majority of these shoots snowballed as a result of the extended warm weather, overdue visits, and frankly, because I just seemed to be on a roll. This autumn has seen new travel shoots across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, with features in Winnipeg, Brandon, Regina, Moose Jaw, Saskatoon, Calgary, Lethbridge, and of course, Medicine Hat.

Many of these shoots will continue to be added to the Hey, Canada series as they're completed, but below is a collage of some of the random snapshots from the last few weeks.

New Image Featured by Tourisme Montréal

Over the weekend this latest post on @editingluke of an aerial autumn view of Montréal, Quebec was featured by Tourisme Montréal and kicked off a wave of subsequent reshares and shout outs on Instagram. Following more than 15K+ likes on the Tourisme Montréal account, over the last few days this image has now been reshared by more Montréal fan accounts than I can keep up with and has even popped up in the feed of Parc Olympique (Olympic Park).  

While reshares for travel photography are not uncommon and are always one of the intentions when networking new images, this Montréal feature is unusual because of how quickly and widespread it's gone in just the last 3 days. At a glance, it seems likely that this image will end up as one of the most viewed @editingluke Instagram posts of 2021.

 

Aurora Over the Cypress Hills in Alberta

I don't think I've ever seen a sky like this so far south, but last night (or earlier this morning - I haven't made it to bed yet) the aurora was dancing above Cypress Hills Provincial Park (the Alberta side) in brilliant, luminous shades of emerald.

I had no intention of spontaneously driving out to the middle of nowhere, but I also wasn't expecting so many "are you going to capture the aurora tonight?" messages after the sun went down. Thank you to all those following the Editing Luke socials for the unexpected push as I would've been sleeping otherwise. It was unreal to witness this sky last night.