Chugach

Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

Happy New Year Everyone!

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Kenai Peninsula, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

Here is another photo from Christmas morning.  This was about 10 minutes earlier then the one I  posted here on Monday.  The trees you see near the top of the little hill are the same ones in the foreground in Monday’s winter photo.

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Snowy trees, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

I headed out the door a couple of hours before sunrise on Christmas morning – at 8:00 a.m. to be accurate.  These winter hours are kind of nice.  I drove 23 miles down the Seward Highway before I even saw another car!  All the pull outs and trail heads were empty – it was like I had Alaska all to myself for a couple of hours.  This spot was about a mile and a half walk in snowshoes – I forget how slow the going is in powder snow, and almost didn’t get here in time for first light.  It was a beautiful morning.  The temperature was a little below zero, and even after 2 hours of hiking and photographing, the battery on my Canon 5D II still had a strong charge.  That was impressive – at those temps, I would have needed to change batteries at least once with my previous camera.

This was a single exposure with my 24-105 lens at 105.  I was at f/14 for 1/5 of a second with an ISO of 400.  I was in an area of deep shade, but the rising sun was just beginning to glow on the distant mountains giving them a cool pastel glow.

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A near full moon over Mt. Alice last Saturday afternoon, Seward, Alaska.

Since we are off today to visit family over the next couple of days, I thought I would wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays a bit early.  See you next week!

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Snowy trees last week in the Chugach National Forest just a few mile from Seward, Alaska.

Thanks for all the great comments and support on the giving away stuff post!  I really appreciate it.

Between Facebook and the photo blog, we had 70 entries.  I put them in a numbered list, went to random.org and generated number 36, and that number belong to Dena – congratulations Dena, watch for an email from me, for once an email that says you won really isn’t a scam.

I thought I would take this time to remind everyone about our free shipping on print orders over $100 ends after tomorrow.  And, there is still time to receive them before Christmas.  You know you are selling a lot of prints when the folks at the post office have your package sizes memorized.  Well, and you know you live in a small town. 

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Winter mountains, Seward, Alaska.

Since I haven’t had time to write anything lately for the photo blog, I thought I would mention a few blog posts I wrote back in 2006 that seem applicable for this season.  Back then this blog had very few followers, at least compared to today, so it is very possible that these will be new to you, and since they are are a few of my most linked to and commented on posts, they just may be worth checking out!

First is one on winter photography entitled Winter Photography, 8 Great Tips.  Here you will find some suggestions that you don’t always read about thanks to my many many winters in Alaska!

This is also a great time of year for northern light photography.  Although it has been another slow year for the northern lights (aurora borealis) as we are just beginning to climb out of the bottom of the solar cycle – I didn’t realize just how good we had it back in 2000 to 2004, I wish I had taken better advantage, but  there are still opportunities, especially if you can travel North or East of Fairbanks.

So the first stepping is finding out when and where the Northern Lights will appear, and this post should help:  Finding Northern Lights.

Then, here are tips for photographing the Northern Lights:  Photographing the Northern Lights.

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A near full Moon rising over the mountains of the Chugach National Forest, Seward, Alaska.

This was from Wednesday afternoon.  I have thousands of variations of this scene, but I just can’t help myself.  It is funny, but when you see these amazing mountains day after day, they lose a bit of there impressiveness – I begin to take them for granted just a little bit.  I must say, after spending 6 weeks in the desert, I’m now reminded of just how beautiful these jagged peaks with a fresh coating of snow really look – they are stunning!

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Summit Lake, Chugach National Forest, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska.

Just about every road through a mountain pass in Alaska passes by a lake with the name Summit Lake – the Seward Highway is no exception.  I must say, I have yet to see an ugly Summit Lake!

This was yesterday afternoon – water seeping through cracks in the ice melted some of the fresh snow and created what I thought were interesting patterns on the lake surface.

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Devils Club, Chugach National Forest, near Seward, Alaska.

This bright red patch of devils club in a sea of rich green caught my eye yesterday as I went running on my favorite mountain trail.  I went back this morning with a camera, 24mm tilt/shift lens and a tripod to photograph this colorful patch.

I hope this doesn’t mean fall is coming early.  Don’t get me wrong, I love our brief, but spectacular fall.  But, the calendar still says July, and we have only seen a few days above 60 – I’m still looking forward to summer!

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Mountains of the Resurrection Peninsula, from Seward, Alaska.

Over the years I have posted many different compositions of the view from our house, but almost all of them have been in the winter when the mountains are completely covered in snow.

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Western Sandpipers yesterday afternoon, Seward, Alaska.

The last two years I have traveled to the Copper River Delta for the spring shorebird migration – that is one amazing experience!

The number of birds migrating through Seward are measured in the hundreds instead of the tens of thousands over on the Copper River Delta, but it is still fun to see.  Yesterday was probably the best day I can ever remember here – hundreds of sandpipers and other shorebirds, numerous species of ducks, even a few sandhill cranes.  And a few eagles and a northern harrier preying on the weak.  There were birds everywhere – it was cool to see and I’m not even a “birder”.

They seem a bit late this year maybe because of the cool weather.  Between the steady rain, wind and a temperature just above 40 – I could barely feel my auto-focus and shutter buttons after a couple of hours – but I was having so much fun, it didn’t matter!

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Mt. Alice, Seward, Alaska.

The mountains around Seward still have heavy amounts of snow, but down low, most of it is gone and green leaves are just beginning to emerge from a largely brown landscape.  As I sit here right now watching a heavy rain come down, it is hard to believe that in just over a month the brown landscape will be transformed to this!  The transformation that takes place during the change of seasons never ceases to amaze me.

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Prince William Sound, Alaska.

Well we had a great response and quickly filled the Alaska bear photo tour after we lowered the price, so we decided to try the same thing with our all inclusive boat based photo tour of the amazing Prince William Sound.  Bears, whales, incredible scenery including active tide water glaciers huge snow capped mountains – I could go on and on about this amazing, remote region!  Follow the link for more details.

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Shorebirds, Copper River Delta, Alaska

This flock of shorebirds nearly formed the shape of  a heart.  I captured this last spring and saved it thinking it would be a perfect post for Valentines day – not realizing it would fall on a holiday weekend.  So I thought I would post it today.  It wouldn’t take too much PhotoShop work to make it into a perfectly shaped heart, but I prefer leaving items as seen.

Actually, this tight formation of fast flying birds making constant direction changes was the result of an attacking predator.

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

This is another recent photo of Mt Alice at sunset captured this past December.  Maybe I should just call this the Mt. Alice photo blog because I post so many photos of this beautiful mountain.    Really, the subject matter here should be taking a dramatic change soon once we hit the desert and begin chasing wildflowers.

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Full Moon over Resurrection Bay, Seward, Alaska.

This was last night’s beautiful full moon rising over Mt. Alice.  The bay was as calm as a lake!

Manual exposure of 10 seconds at f/8 and ISO 400.  Canon 1DsIII and 24-105 lens at 47.

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Sunrise over the Chugach National Forest, Seward, Alaska.

It has been a little while since I have posted a new photo from Seward.  Here is a recent image captured out or front door of a view that never gets old!

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Resurrection Peaks, Chugach National Forest, near Seward, Alaska.

Here is another photo taken from just a few steps out the front door during another beautiful morning.  This was captured last week on the same day as the photo of ice patterns.

I know, I have thousands of photos of these mountains, and have posted dozens of them here on the blog over the years, but I just can’t help myself, they are just too beautiful!  I’m sure I will take thousands of more in the years to come.

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Alpenglow on Resurrection Peaks, Chugach National Forest, near Seward, Alaska.

This is looking North, directly away from one of the most amazing sunrises I have ever seen in Seward – the same morning of my recent post on sunrise over Resurrection Bay.  This has to be the most dramatic, colorful alpenglow I have ever seen.

I must confess, I have often mis-used the word alpenglow.  Thanks to blog reader Aaron for setting me straight on my welcome home post.  As Aaron pointed out, and further research confirmed, alpengow is the pink glow you see while the sun is still below the horizon.  There can not be a direct path of light from the sun to the mountain.  So that red / orange light shinning on snow caped peaks at the beginning or end of the day isn’t really alpenglow – I have been mis-identifying it for years.  I don’t know what it is called – sweet mountain light I guess.

This is pretty much straight out of the camera.  I added a little contrast to the mid-tones, but I didn’t add any color or saturation.

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Another photo from Thursday evening of the Chugach National Forest, Seward, Alaska.

Update:  I just posted an updated, more extensive list here:  Gift Ideas for Photographers.

I get asked this question a fair amount as friends try to shop for their avid photographer loved one.  It is a tough question to answer because camera gear can be very expensive, and most photographers have fairly strong opinions on photo gear.  So, I thought I would throw out some less expensive, safer options to consider.

Digital frames Most photographers love to share the photos with family and co-workers, and having a  nice  digital frame for the office or home makes a great gift for most any photographer.  I can’t recommend a particular one as I don’t own one, but I have found the buyer feedback on Amazon to be pretty accurate.

Books.   I can’t own enough books, I’m running out of room to store them all.  I have books on particular animal species, books on locations, and books on photography.  Here are some of my favorites:

Outdoor photography

Galen Rowell’s classic book The Inner Game of Outdoor Photography is scheduled for re-release next May.  Until then, this great book by the master is a great read even if some of the information is dated:  Galen Rowell’s Vision: The Art of Adventure Photography

I haven’t seen this book, but know most of the contributors so feel fairly safe in recommending:  The Ultimate Guide to Digital Nature Photography

Location Guides

These can be very helpful and provide a nice running head start for any location.  I like to try to find my own “hot spots”, but there is nothing wrong with getting some help finding the existing ones.  Except for the Oregon book, I have used, enjoyed and relied on these location guides:

Photographing the Southwest: Volume 1–Southern Utah (2nd Ed.)
Photographing the Southwest: Volume 2–Arizona (2nd Ed.)
Photographing the Southwest: Volume 3–Colorado/New Mexico (Photographing the Soutwest)
Photographer’s Guide to Yellowstone and the Tetons
The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite
Photographing Oregon (Phototripsusa)

Animal Reference

Birds – every nature lover should have this valuable resource:  The Sibley Guide to Birds

Bird behavior.  If your photographer already has the Sibley Guide to Birds, this makes a great compliment:  The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior It covers nesting / feeding, all kinds of stuff.

Wolves.  If you like wolves as much as I do, and Denali, then this is a must read:   Wolves Of Denali

Moose.  I wish there was a book like this on every species.  It is very comprehensive, over 700 pages, and parts are technical, but if you have ever wondered something about moose, you can find it here.  I should warn you, books like this don’t come cheap, but Amazon has it for $75:   Ecology and Management of the North American Moose

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Or when all else fails, you can never go wrong with a  B & H gift card.

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