Josh Couts

Tell us something about this picture

This photo is from our honeymoon trip to the Canadian Rockies in June of 2007 – in this particular scene, we are enjoying a morning of paddling on Lake Louise.

Nearly six years later, I recall this scene by its contrasts. The lake and air were very calm that morning – visually, our eyes were leaping back and forth from these static, level waters to the dynamic peaks and icefields above – audibly, we had a quiet solitude through the calm of the lake divide abruptly by these immense sounds of ice breaking off the glaciers and falling several hundred feet in the basin above. At that point in my life, I had not heard a glacier calve off ice. I had thought all beauty to be harmonic, but this sound was anything but that – it was a very violent and unsettling sound that left a strong impression on me. At the center of all of this sat my wife in front of me – a source of stability through the highs, lows and contrasts of life.

For many years, I was hesitant to share this photo – I had a difficult time looking past what I saw as technical flaws and seeing the image for what it is, rather than what it isn’t. Along the way, something changed.

The slide is on Ektachrome 64 through a Canon Rebel K2 with a 50mm f1.8 Canon lens.

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Josh Couts – photographer residing near Boulder, Colorado / on flickr – on tumblr