A 3:2 photograph of Moraine Lake and the Valley of the Ten Peaks under morning cloud, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, available as a limited edition print in four sizes.
Artist's Story
This was the third morning I walked up the rockpile at the end of Moraine Lake. The first two the water sat flat and gray under solid cloud. On the third the cloud opened enough to put some light on the peaks, and the lake came up turquoise underneath it.
The sky that morning was gray. Whatever the water was doing, it was not copying what was above it.
The color comes out of the rock. A glacier moving over bedrock grinds it, and the finest of what it produces is rock flour, particles small enough to stay suspended in meltwater indefinitely instead of settling to the bottom. Those particles are close in size to the wavelengths of visible light, which is the condition for scattering it, and they throw the blue and green back out through the surface while the water column absorbs the reds and yellows with depth. What reaches your eye is the part of the spectrum that got turned around before it could be swallowed.
The measurement is worth reporting. Across this frame the sky and the water land within half a point of each other on the difference between the red and blue channels, at fifty-two and fifty-two. One of those is cloud and the other is powdered rock held in suspension, and by that measure they are the same color.
Azure Oasis is a lake the color of a sky it spent three days refusing to reflect.
This crop is 55 percent of the frame width, about 33 inches across on the 60 inch print. The snow has separated into individual gullies with the rock ribs standing between them, and the one sunlit slope reads warm against the shadowed rock on either side of it. Along the shore the forest resolves into separate conifers, and the cloud across the top holds distinct layers rather than a single mass. Click to view at full size.
About This Photograph
Moraine Lake, in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, Banff National Park, Alberta. The lake is fed by snowmelt and glacial runoff from the peaks standing above it, and its level rises and falls across the season. The foreground boulders are the rockpile at its northeast end. Single frame, morning.
The reflection here is partial, which is a property of the surface rather than of the light. A mirror image survives only where the water is smooth at the scale of the thing being reflected. Where wind has textured it, the return scatters in many directions at once and the image dissolves into color without shape. The peaks hold through the center and break up toward the right shore.
Measured across the frame, this picture runs thirty-four points cool on the red-blue axis, more than twice the departure of anything else in the collection. The brightest sustained passage is two hundred and forty-four out of two hundred and fifty-five.
Azure Oasis
Steve Austinhttps://www.steveaustinphotography.com/
Location
Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Subject
Moraine Lake · Valley of the Ten Peaks · glacial water
Capture
Single frame, morning
Format
Photograph · horizontal, 3:2
Sizes
24 × 16 in · 36 × 24 in · 48 × 32 in · 60 × 40 in
Print Media
TruLife Acrylic · ChromaLuxe Metal · Baryta paper
Edition
Limited, 25 / 50 / 100 by presentation
What it Does in a Room
This is the coolest photograph in the collection by a wide margin, thirty-four points cool where nothing else clears fifteen, and that makes it unusually sensitive to what it hangs beside. Color is judged against its surroundings rather than in isolation, so warm materials in the immediate surround will pull the turquoise toward gray. Oak, brass, terracotta, warm plaster, and honey-toned leather all do it, and the effect is strongest within a few feet of the frame. Put cool gray, pale stone, or blackened steel around it and the water reads at full strength. The same print is a different color in two rooms, and the surround is doing it, not the light.
It is also the brightest thing here, which makes it the easiest to place. The ceiling measures two hundred and forty-four out of two hundred and fifty-five and the picture stays bright right out to its top and bottom edges. Where the darker work in this collection needs a dim room and turns muddy under a lit wall, this one holds its structure in daylight and does not need protecting from ambient light. It will sit on a wall opposite a window, in a room used during the day, in an office or a waiting area, and lose nothing.
There is no single distance at which it resolves. The picture holds three separate zones with detail in all of them, the boulders in the near foreground, the water and its broken reflection through the middle, and the peaks and cloud across the top, and each of the three pays off at a different range. Walk toward it and the subject changes rather than sharpening. That makes it a good fit for a wall people pass and re-pass rather than one they sit in front of, and it means the piece has no wrong viewing position, only different ones.
Not sure which size the room calls for, or want dimensions not listed here? Sizes beyond 60 × 40 are available on request and ship crated by freight. That conversation is welcome before an order is placed. Start that conversation and I will answer within one business day.
How small is too small for a photograph like this?
At the Intimate size the picture is twenty-four inches across and sixteen tall, and the large shapes hold. The color holds too, since it is broad and saturated and reduction does not touch it. What goes is the peaks. There are ten of them across the top of the frame and at this size they compress into a single ridge with the individual summits no longer separating from one another. The snow gullies go with them, and once those are gone the range reads as a pale band rather than as rock with structure. The Collected at thirty-six by twenty-four brings the summits back apart. The Expansive at forty-eight by thirty-two is where the reflection starts carrying its own detail rather than reading as a soft echo. If you are weighing a size against a specific wall, choosing the right print size covers the measurements and the viewing distances in more detail.
What changes at the largest size?
At sixty by forty, working down the frame: the cloud across the top separates into layers with edges rather than reading as one mass, and the small break of clear sky near the upper left holds its shape. The snow on the peaks resolves into individual gullies and the rock ribs between them. The one sunlit face at center right separates cleanly from the shadowed rock on either side of it, which is the only warm passage in the picture. The forest along both shores becomes individual conifers instead of a dark band. In the water the reflected snow pattern reads as distinct streaks, and the boundary where the reflection breaks into wind texture becomes visible as a line rather than a gradient. In the foreground the boulders show their lichen and mineral staining, orange and pale green against gray. Why scale matters covers what happens perceptually when a photograph reaches the size where the eye has to cross it.
What kind of room does this photograph suit?
Rooms that are used in daylight, and walls people move past. A living room, an office, a stair landing, a waiting area, a long corridor. Hang it at standard height with the center at about fifty-seven inches, since nothing here rewards an unusual position. On materials it wants cool company: pale gray plaster, white, limestone, blackened steel, and cool-toned upholstery. Three things to avoid. Use neutral bulbs at three thousand Kelvin or above, because a warm lamp will drag the turquoise toward gray-green. Keep it out of direct sun, since the snow already sits within a few points of paper white and full sun will finish the job. And do not hang it in the same sightline as another water or mountain image, because the two will be compared rather than seen. When your mind needs to rest takes the question further.
Every work ships insured and arrives with a signed certificate of authenticity.
If a piece is damaged in transit, the choice of replacement is always yours, and your edition number stays with you.
Production time runs 2 to 3 weeks for metal, 3 to 4 weeks for acrylic and paper, and 5 to 6 weeks for framed work.
Each print is made to order and takes its place in a numbered edition, so sales are final. Before you choose, I am glad to help: send a photo of your wall and I will show you this work in your room at true scale, at no charge. Start a conversation
Collector's Choice · TruLife ® Acrylic in Italian Frame
Collector Edition of 25· Lumachrome TruLife Acrylic · Handcrafted Italian Frame
TruLife acrylic in a handcrafted Italian frame with a linen liner chosen for the image. Frame series, finish, and liner are settled with you after the order, and production begins from there. The frame and liner add about fourteen inches to the finished dimensions, worth allowing for when planning placement.
Signature Acrylic Edition of 50· Lumachrome TruLife · Gallery Float Mount
Face-mounted to TruLife acrylic and floated approximately one inch from the wall, with no frame to mediate between the image and the room. UV-resistant, anti-reflective, and scratch-resistant, with a lifetime guarantee against fading.
Signature Metal Edition of 50· ChromaLuxe Print · Gallery Float Mount
Color infused into the aluminum panel itself, floated from the wall on a concealed system. Where acrylic produces luminosity, metal produces clarity. Exceptional fade resistance with no glazing or coating required.
Fine Art Edition of 100· Hahnemühle Baryta Fine Art Paper
Printed without acrylic, so light meets the paper surface directly. Highlights stay luminous, shadows keep their nuance, and the surface has a tactile quality the other presentations approach differently. The understated choice, and the traditional one.
Complimentary shipping within the continental United States. International collector shipping available upon request.
Still deciding
Designing for Stillness
A guide to choosing art for restorative spaces
How to tell whether an image will still hold you in a year, how scale changes what a photograph does in a room, and how to match a piece to the work a room actually performs. It cites the research it draws on, and it is equally clear about where that research stops. About ten minutes to read.
