Alpenglow on Mt. Alice, Chugach National Forest, Seward, Alaska.

I took this photo out the front door just an hour or so after getting home on Sunday – what a great welcome home!  I have hundreds, if not thousands of somewhat similar images of this mountain, I will probably take thousands more – how can I resist?

During long trips and our summer in Alaska I’m getting enough new material to post to the blog 5 days a week.  This time of year I’m concentrating on office work, so I might not post as often over the next few months, maybe 3 times a week.  I know I have said that in the past and continued posting 5 days a week, but it takes the pressure off if I lower the expectations. 

2010 Alaska Wildlands Calendar

I have tried to keep the shameless self promotion to a minimum, but I have always kinda liked this photo of Harriman Glacier in the Chugach National Forest, so I was excited to have it selected for the cover of next years calendar.

I believe these are available at most National Park visitor centers in Alaska.  Here are some more Chugach National Forest photos.

Rainbow over Resurrection Bay, Seward, Alaska.

I spotted this rainbow Monday – it had to be one of the brightest, most vivid rainbows I had ever seen.  Judging by the reactions of my neighbors, as they emerged from their homes with cameras in hand, I wasn’t the only one who thought so.  The best reaction came from an 8 year old boy riding by on his bike who looked at his buddy and said “Dude, look at that sick rainbow!”

Mount Marathon, Seward, Alaska.

Here is another photo from Sunday night on Mount Marathon.

Check out more Alaska photos.

Below the bowl on the backside of the race portion of Mt. Marathon, Seward, Alaska.

The plan was to continue posting photos on the blog from our recent trip to British Columbia, as I worked hard in the office.  Well, the weather turned so nice, we couldn’t stay inside!  So yesterday afternoon we grabbed the backpacks, tent and camera gear and headed for the hills!  This was captured just before sunset last night – unfortunately the sky didn’t light up, but it was a great place to hang out!

After photographing sunrise, we were still back home by 9:30, so we had a nice night in the field, and can still get some office work done!

Here are more Alaska photos.

Coyote, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

I spotted and photographed  this coyote last night – I think it was the same one I often spotted while skiing last winter.

Shortly after finding him, the coyote found a spruce grouse family with very small chicks.  The mother spruce grouse did an amazing broken wing acting job the the coyote compelty was fooled by.  The coyote took off chasing the mother bird some distance down the road, and she managed to stay enticingly close, but just out of reach.  Unfortunatly one the the chicks froze motionless right in the middle of the road!  I went and stood by the chick  so that it wouldn’t get hit by any passing vehicles.  Eventually, it moved back into the forest.  Nature sure can be fascinating to watch!

Mount Alice, from Seward, Alaska.

I captured this last night at sunset from within the city limits of Seward, looking towards Mt. Alice and the Chugach National Forest.  I was hoping for a bit more color in the sky, but that’s OK, I think it is still a pretty scene.  I think I have more photos of Mt Alice then of any other subject!

Anyone visiting Seward this past weekend (and there were many) must think this is an amazing place.  We had perfect temperatures in the mid-70’s, beautiful scenery in every direction, and if that wasn’t enough, two very active  humpback whales, keeping visitors and locals alike, entertained as they worked their way back and fourth along the towns coastline.

I have always felt that on a nice day Seward is the most beautiful place I have visited.  Unfortuantely, thanks to 65 inches of average annual rainfall and 80 inches of average annual snowfall (according to The Milepost), weekends like this don’t happend often enough.  But when they do, it sure is easy to forget about those rainy summers, and dark winters!

A recent photo of Mt. Benson and the Resurrection River Vally, near Seward, Alaska.

This is a big holiday weekend in the United States – I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe and fun weekend!

A Jumping Red Salmon, Alaska.

Thanks for the great feedback on yesterday’s post!

It was cloudy this morning, so I decided to try again – this time with less wide-angle (58 mm), and using the waterfall as a background.  It is interesting, photographing the waterfall from this angle with a fairly high shutter speed really changed the appearance of the falls – they make for a background that is a bit busy for my taste.

The photos in today’s and yesterday’s post will probably never make it our to our main website, or into our portfolio, but I thought I would still share them here so that you can see my experimentation process.

A Red Salmon trying to leap up a waterfall, Alaska.

OK, here is another setup I have been attempting to fine tune this past week.  This is also captured by a remotely fired camera via a Pocket Wizard, along with a very wide angle lens set at 20mm, and some fill flash.

Since the salmon were often landing where I had my camera setup, I decided to use an old camera (5d), and an old barely functioning tripod, along with an equally old, seldom used lens – glad I held on to that stuff!   Even though I had the whole setup tied to the bank with rope, I really didn’t want to take a chance of losing my main gear into the pool of water!

So what do you think, does this “work”, is it worth pursuing?

Here are my thoughts.  The uneven lighting doesn’t help – I hope to try again on a cloudy or overcast day.  I think 20 mm might be too wide – the salmon looks a little small in the frame even through it is just a couple feet from the camera – maybe 24 would be better.    I might try a different composition, one looking back towards the waterfall – this might help keep the camera dry – I had to constantly dry the front of the lens thanks to splashing salmon!

I need to work on my reaction time – about 100 of my 120 photos contained only a waterfall because by the time I clicked, the salmon had already landed!

A young moose feeds in a pond, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

I captured this a couple of nights ago, 15 minutes past 11 p.m.!

Paradise Peak, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

I returned to this pretty patch of lupine for sunset Wednesday night.  I’m pretty much standing in the same spot as I was in the image I posted earlier this week, but facing a different direction, just as the stormy weather cleared.  It is interesting how the same location can produce such different results in such a short period of time.

An above and below water photo of Red Salmon, Chugach National Forest, near Seward, Alaska.

I got out my remote setup for above / below water photos yesterday, it is pretty fun to play with!  I have never used this setup in swift moving water like this – it offers some new challenges.

For one, the water level moves up and down in the frame from photo to photo – in still water it is easy to have the surface bisect the middle of the frame.  In addition, the water surface itself also seem much thicker then on flat water.  What happen is sometimes the fish or the trees get hidden by the water surface if that makes any sense.  Finally, the fish and light rain kept getting the glass wet as you can see by the blurred areas in the top half of this image – I think I have a solution for this.  But, when it does work, I think the results are pretty cool!

I hope to spend a few more days working this location – now if I could only have a bear here like there was last year!

Snow River Valley, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

I captured this yesterday as a rain squall moved up the valley.  Check out the fresh snow in the mountains – it usually begins looking like that in September, not June!

Exit Glacier Road, Seward, Alaska.

This was taken at about 11:00 at night earlier this week.  I think it is easy to see why I make the 10 plus mile drive from Seward to Exit Glacier frequently this time of year, it is a beautiful drive!

This is Mount Benson.  This area is roughly spit in half by the Chugach National Forest and Kenai Fjords National Park, so I will put this in both categories.

]]> http://www.my-photo-blog.com/exit-glacier-road/feed 15 http://www.my-photo-blog.com/what-is-your-best-selling-photo-in-terms-of-revenue http://www.my-photo-blog.com/what-is-your-best-selling-photo-in-terms-of-revenue#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 18:46:13 +0000 Ron http://www.my-photo-blog.com/?p=2773

A pond with Mt. Alice in the background, Seward, Alaska.

As part of my Ask Ron series, Phil Cola asked what is my top selling photo in terms of revenue, and what was the location, setup, logistics etc.

It is a great question – I know I’m always fascinated by the annual issue of Photo District News (PDN) in which the major stock agencies share the same information on their most successful image from the prior year.  My most successful images draw on some similar parallels that I will touch on below. 

By the way, Phil Colla is an excellent photographer – he was one of the first photographers I knew who had a blog, I have been following his very informative blog for years.  If his name looks familiar here, you may remember Phil and I shared a chartered helicopter for a flight over San Diego earlier this year.

So interestingly enough, the above photo is the top performer thanks mainly to one large sale for a Nature Valley billboard ad campaign.  It has sold a few other times, but its success is because of this one sale.  In fact, our top 5 (maybe more) grossing images are all because of a single sale.  That tends to skew the number.  Maybe tomorrow I will post our more popular sellers in terms of number of times sold.

Now to answer Phil’s questions about the setup and logistics.  Considering all the really amazing places we travel to, you might think there could be a great story here, but there really isn’t much to it.  This is a little pond within the city limits of my hometown.  In June there is a short period where the greens just rock. (We are getting close to that time this year)  I also knew that in the same month this pond gets hit with some really sweet evening light.  So I waited for a nice evening, drove down there and grabbed this photo – I was probably away from the house for about a half an hour as I worked the last light of day, then came back home.

So what does this have in common with other top stock revenue earners?  For one, I’m always surprised as to how many of the images in the annual PDN article are landscape images.  I would say 4 of my top 5 earners are landscape images as well.  I wouldn’t have guessed that – I have always thought model released outdoor activity images would be the big winners.

The other thing that surprises me is that it seems like the best selling stock landscape photos all have nice light, but not the rare, dramatic light that draws all the ohs and awes on photography forums.  Supposedly, the largest stock sell ever was an image of a green wheat field  with a blue sky along with a nice cloud overhead – it is the photo that accompanies all Window XP computers.  My image has some similar traits - bright warm blues and greens, but not some dramatic sunset or other light.  This holds true for my other top earners as well.

Since I have shared with you my hits, it only seems fair that I share some of my misses as well.  My misses are photos where I spent a fair amount of time and money and thought I really had a winner – but then the photo never sold.

Pectoral Sandpiper near Seward, Alaska.

I think this is the last of the shorebird photos – the birds have now move on.  This will give me the chance to get caught up on the Ask Ron questions.  

All the shorebird close ups I have posted recently have been captured with a 600 and 2x converter.  I usually have used a wide open aperture in aperture priority mode.  I have the exposure compensation to 0, and add flash in ETTL mode with the flash set at -1 stop.  I may adjust a bit from there after checking the histogram on the back of the camera, but for the most part, those settings worked well.

There are two tools I find very valuable for photographing shorebirds.  I really like the look you get by being at the birds level, even though it means laying in the mud and water.  Not only do I like the look, but I find the birds feel unthreatened and will often approach very close if I’m lying down and holding still.  The tool that makes this easier for shooting down low is the skimmer.  I mount my tripod head and camera to this and then will find a spot to lay and wait.

The other tool that I find valuable is the Better Beamer Flash Extender.  This thing basically adds two to three stops of light power to your flash.  This can greatly increase the range of your flash.  In the photos I have posted recently, the birds were will within the range of my flash, but I used the extender as it still reduced the amount of flash output needed.  This has a couple of benefits, it allows my rechargeable batteries last longer, and helps flash recharge  quicker.

Mount Alice viewed from some beach driftwood, Seward, Alaska.

I located this cool looking stump on the beach about a month ago, and have intended to photograph it for some time now.  I can see myself returning to this spot and trying different compositions in varying light.   This was from last night at about 10:15.

Since the sun was off the driftwood, I played around with some off camera flash.  It probably would have been better with two flashes, but I just had one with me.  This was with my 24-105mm lens set at 32, with my aperture set at the smallest opening of f/22 to maximize the depth of field.  Shutter speed was 1/5 of a second.  I had to bump the ISO up to 400 to increase the strength of the flash which I had manually set to full strength (1:1).  I hand held the flash off to the left of the driftwood.

A Least Sandpiper resting near Seward, Alaska.

Seven years ago I walked away from a great job with full benefits, a wonderful boss and awesome co-workers to pursue my dream of being a photographer.  Janine had left her job a couple of years before to begin building the business and it was time to take the plunge.  It was the scariest, but one of the best, decisions I have ever made.

I find it interesting, at the time I was consumed with “making it”.  I really wanted to succeed, and would work as hard as possible to achieve that success.  If you had told me then that 7 years later we would be traveling, taking photos and making a comfortable living, I would have breathed a big sigh of relief and would have been thrilled at the thought of actually “making it”.  But now that I’m here, I still worry about the future, and continue to have those thoughts that I hope we can “make it”.  As someone told be recently, it is probably a good thing to feel that way.  I know one thing – it sure has been a wonderful journey!

A Least Sandpiper near Seward, Alaska.

This was from earlier this week – I liked how the sandpiper appeared to be checking out its reflection.

I wanted to thank everyone for all the constructive comments and emails I recived on the sandpiper blur image – lots of great insight, I really appreciate it!