For many years now I’ve been dazzled by the results of Banff Centre’s Banff Mountain Photography Competition.  This prestigious contest draws entries from talented photographers the world over.  This year, for the first time, I’ve entered a few of my mountain images.

Here they are:

Windy Point Ridge, Near Nordegg, Alberta

Climbing Isaac's Wet Dream near Nordegg, Alberta

The view from Deception Pass, near in the Skoki Valley in the Lake Lousie region

View from Brachiopod Mountain 2, Near the Skoki Valley, Lake Louise Banff National Park, Alberta

View from Brachiopod Mountain 1, Near the Skoki Valley, Lake Louise Banff National Park, Alberta

Windy Point Ridge, Near Nordegg, Alberta

Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta

Coming down Mt. Chester, Kananaskis, Alberta

Lake Abraham, Near Nordegg, Alberta

The view from Tangle Ridge, Near the Columbia Icefields Jasper National Park, Alberta

Higher resolution versions of these images available on a gallery at http://www.leroyschulz.com/banffmountainphotocomp2009.

For some time now, despite my general opinion that blending textures with photos is quickly becoming passé, I’ve been interested in blending textures with some of my mountain imagery.  My goal is not to create an entirely new image apart from what occured naturally.  On the contrary, I see my post-processing as a final step in expressing the mood and thoughtset that existed at the moment of capture.

So in the last few days I decided to pick in image from my library.  The image I chose was from a backpacking trip in September 2004 to the Egypt Lake area of Banff National Park.

First I prepared the image in Adobe Lightroom by modifying contrast, saturation, and clarity, topped off by minor cropping.  This is what was left:

Pyrrhic Breakthrough (Original)

Next I blended two textures from the wonderfully rich textures provided by ~Essense of a Dream~.  After some initial tweaking, this is what I have:

Pyrrhic Breakthrough (Texturized)

It certainly changes the mood of the image, for better and for worse.

Even though I know that I’m not satisified with how the texturized image looks, I’m a big fan of separating myself from a creative project by waiting a few days to look at it again.  I’ll go back to this idea in a few days.