Imagine your blue sky for a moment. Then try to imagine it a thousand times bluer than what you can see with the naked eye.

When you see the stunning gallery at the end of this, you won’t have to imagine anymore. I did it!!! I took a blue sky and made it out-of-this-world bluer, not in Photoshop either! This is legit with the camera and some cool flash photography techniques on a road just outside of Okotoks!

This was seriously one of the most fun parts of the entire month of October for me! It’s not every day that I get to take a couple of hours with my camera flash equipment and just hang out having fun with some cool people.

Peace officer Trevor LaDuke was gracious enough to accommodate my photographic requests. “Look here. Look there. Stand over here. Would you mind moving the car and angling it a bit the other way?” (So bossy, right?)

We ended up shooting on 48 Street West, just near the Big Rock, with the sunset in the background, and we actually saw a lot more traffic than I was expecting.

Seeing that I was with a peace officer and I had him turn on his light for the photos, I certainly didn’t have any safety concerns about people not seeing us. But boy, were some of the reactions to our presence funny!

People would see us in the distance and slowly creep up the road. A few even stopped to make sure it was OK for them to pass!

So for everyone on that road Wednesday night, Oct. 20, that was wondering what in the world was going on? Ya, that was me.

I have to say, I’m thrilled with the results from the shoot! Blue hour photography is one of my absolute favourites!

Officer LaDuke has been serving the community of Okotoks since May of 2019, helping to keep things safe around town. I had the pleasure of chatting with him earlier this year about what it’s like to be a peace officer, and I learned some pretty wild stuff, including how he took the criminal justice program at Mount Royal University and now gets to train the practicum students from the university. They get experience as sworn in bylaw officers to allow them to complete thier criminology degree.

We had one such student out there that evening, Hannah Pack, and she did a great job moving the flash equipment back and forth every time we had to let a vehicle pass!

Our video expert Logan Coutts did an amazing job putting together my interview with Officer LaDuke for a video on our YouTube channel, and I’ve included it below.

But of course, after all this hype about turning the sky a new kind of blue, I suppose you actually want to see some pictures. Well, here they are, an entire gallery of them.

And believe me, I had a hard time narrowing it down! I hope you enjoy checking them out as much as I loved shooting them. (But to give you a fair warning, if you enjoy it that much then you’ll be reaching a dangerously awesome level of excitement!)

I can hardly wait for my next photo shoot, and I’d love to get your take on it! Who in the community would you like to see me photograph next? Email us at news@okotoksonline.com.

~Jessica Dezall