Chugach

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

This was from last night at sunset.  It is probably more accurate to say, yesterday afternoon at sunset – this was a little after 3:00.

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Harriman Glacier, Prince William Sound, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

Well now that my first two Alaska photo tours are filling, (we have one spot remaining for the Kenai Fjords photo tour, and two spots for the Bear and Puffin photo tour), I thought I would promote my final offering, a photo tour into the amazing Prince William Sound.

Like the Kenai Fjords tour, this is an all inclusive boat based tour into a region of amazing scenery and wonderful wildlife.  This three night, four day tour will be limited to four guests, myself, an incredibly knowledgeable captain, and a cook – and we will have a 58 foot research vessel to spread out on!  We will have access to a Zodiak skiff for shore excursions and hikes, and will overnight in a different remote location each night.  Instead of repeating the amazing details here, you can read much more here:  Prince William Sound photo tour.

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Troy Henkels kayaking in front of Cascade Falls, Prince William Sound, Alaska.

I have intended to tell you about www.outdoor-gear-deals.com and after seeing Necky sea kayaks for 45% off yesterday, it reminded me I needed to share this site.  But let me back up for a minute to explain.

By necessity, my occupation as an outdoor photographer requires a fair amount of good outdoor gear, so I’m always on the lookout for good deals on good outdoor equipment.  You may have remembered a post last spring where I talked about becoming addicted to these new websites like steep and cheap where they offer huge discounts on just a single item at a time.  Well, these one time “deals of the day” or even deal by hour are becoming more popular, with companies like Patagonia and REI getting in on the act.

Well it took too much time to try and visit a bunch of websites each day just in case there was something I “needed” so I created a little website that consolidated all these deals onto a single page.  For the last 6 months it has only been used by Janine and I, and a few friends, but I thought I should share it here as others might find it valuable.  So check it out and bookmark Outdoor Gear Deals – deal of the day website, the page automatically updates every 10 minutes.  It still needs some fine tuning, but I think you might find it helpful.

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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. 

Correction:  Thanks to Aaron below, I now know this isn’t actually considered alpenglow.  This is alpenglow.

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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!”

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Mount Marathon, Seward, Alaska.

Here is another photo from Sunday night on Mount Marathon.

Check out more Alaska photos.

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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.!

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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.   [click to continue…]

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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.

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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!

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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!

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Rain-forest, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

There is more to the Copper River Delta area then just birds – actually, a lot more!  This was from my recent trip.

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