In 2019, I set off on a photography trip to Canada, a journey I had been dreaming about for years. The Canadian Rockies had occupied a permanent place on my bucket list, and when the trip finally became reality, I thought I already knew exactly how I wanted to photograph them.
A few weeks before departure, I bought a new ultra-wide zoom lens. If there was ever a place that demanded dramatic wide-angle landscapes, surely it was Canada. Towering mountains, turquoise lakes, endless forests, and vast skies seemed perfectly suited to a lens designed to capture as much of the scene as possible. When it arrived, I was immediately impressed. It was sharp, lightweight, and produced exactly the kind of sweeping images I associated with great landscape photography. Before long, I had convinced myself it was the only lens I really needed for the trip.
Looking back now, I realise I became slightly obsessed with it. It was new, exciting, and I left it on my camera for almost the entire journey. My standard zoom barely came out at all. At the time, I genuinely believed ultra-wide lenses were the best landscape lenses. Why would I want to zoom in when Canada offered some of the most spectacular scenery on Earth?
The trip began in Vancouver, a city framed by water, forest, and mountains. I spent hours exploring Stanley Park and photographing the skyline across the harbour, always through the ultra-wide lens. I never once considered zooming with my standard lens to isolate distant mountains or compress the layers of the city. My approach was already fixed.
Leaving the glass towers behind, we headed east towards the Rockies, stopping at Bridal Veil Falls along the way. Here, the lens felt completely at home. Foreground logs, rushing water, and towering trees all fitted comfortably into a single frame. The perspective created a sense of immersion that matched the experience of standing there, and every successful image seemed to confirm my choice.
Bridal Veil
Canada
By the time we reached the Icefields Parkway, with glaciers hanging above the road and mountains stretching to every horizon, the lens had become almost permanent. Driving through the Rockies was one of those rare experiences that exceeds expectations. We regularly pulled over simply to stand beside the road and take it all in. The scale was difficult to comprehend from ground level.
The strange thing is that many of the photographs don’t quite reflect that feeling. When I look back at the images now, the mountains often appear smaller than I remember. Lakes dominate the frame. Valleys stretch across large portions of the composition. The photographs contain everything I saw, yet somehow communicate less of the scale I felt at the time.
Mount Edith Cavell
Canada
At first, I assumed I simply needed to improve my compositions. But years later, I can see the lens itself was shaping the way I saw the landscape. I had already decided how I would photograph each scene before even taking the camera out of the bag.
Banff and Jasper offered endless opportunities for the ultra-wide lens to shine. Rivers, waterfalls, and mountain vistas all worked beautifully with a broad perspective. Foreground elements led naturally into distant peaks, and flowing water connected different parts of the frame. Yet looking back, I also see what I missed: mountain layers that would have suited a telephoto lens, forest details that deserved isolation, and moments where compression would have communicated scale more effectively than simply including everything.
I don’t think the lens was the problem. It performed brilliantly throughout the trip. The problem was that I became more focused on using it than on choosing it. The gear shaped my attention more than the landscape itself.
Downtown Calgary
Canada
Looking through the photographs now, I notice something else. My strongest images are rarely successful because they are wide. They work because the composition is strong. Clear subjects, visual balance, and a sense of intention matter far more than focal length. The lens helped shape the image, but it wasn’t what made it work.
If I returned to Canada today, I suspect I would photograph it very differently. The ultra-wide would still come with me, but I would spend far more time with a standard zoom or a telephoto lens. Rather than trying to include everything, I would look for relationships within the landscape. I would isolate layers, pick out patterns, and use longer focal lengths to express scale rather than simply breadth. Most importantly, I would spend more time observing and less time thinking about equipment.
Every focal length tells a different story, and part of learning as a photographer is understanding which story a scene is asking for.
When I think back to Canada now, I remember standing beneath mountains that felt impossibly large, watching glacial rivers carve through valleys, and pulling over repeatedly just to take it all in. The photographs are reminders of those moments, but also of where I was as a photographer at the time.
In many ways, the trip taught me that landscape photography has far less to do with fitting everything into the frame than I once believed. The real challenge is deciding what deserves to be there, and what does not.