Morant's Curve

Banff National Park, Alberta

This is the famous scene near Lake Louise which was popularized by Nicholas Morant, who was a staff photographer with the CPR during the mid twentieth century. I've visited it many times and determined that a snow-covered sunrise scene would show it at its best. There's no train timetable to consult with so you just have to show up here and hope for the best. I got lucky on this morning. This image is a combination of two shots taken just a couple of minutes apart. One shot with a fast shutter speed and high ISO was needed to freeze the motion of the train while another shot, taken just a few minutes later when the sun illuminated the mountain peaks, with a slow shutter speed and low ISO was needed to get a high quality background image with no digital noise. These images were then combined to create the scene as I envisaged it.