Darwin Wiggett, Special Mention, 2004 Banff Mountain Photography Competition

"Many photographers get frustrated when forest fire smoke settles into mountain valleys. By day, the blue haze looks like L.A. smog. How can anyone make inviting mountain photos under these conditions? Simple: wait till dawn or dusk, when the low-angled sun scatters warm light across the ash in the air to create spectacularly coloured skies. Several large forest fires in both B.C. and Montana created a wave of ash in the sky which I captured in this eight-minute exposure of Paine Lake near Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta."

Darwin Wiggett is an Alberta-based photographer who specializes in western Canadian landscapes. His photographs have been published widely throughout the world and he is the author and photographer of two books: Darwin Wiggett Photographs Canada (Whitecap Books) and the upcoming How to Photograph the Canadian Rockies (Altitude). He is also the principal photographer of Canada, A Visual Journey and Seasons in the Rockies (Whitecap Books). Darwin is a long-time contributor and past co-editor of Photo Life magazine. First Light, Corbis, Workbookstock and Alamy stock agencies currently represent his work.

wiggett@telusplanet.net