Sunset over the Seward Boat Harbor, Alaska.
Colorful sunset skies like this are fairly rare in Seward. Thanks to the beautiful surrounding mountains, it takes just the right combination of clouds, and they need to be relatively high to light up like this. Usually they are too low and the sun isn’t able to illuminate the bottom of the clouds.
I captured this photo about a week ago at the beginning of this amazing stretch of weather. Unfortunately, with the hot dry weather has come forest fires – there are now over 70 burning in the state. Today, you can barely make out the shape of that distant mountain you see in this photo, even though it is just a couple of miles away.
We looked at flying down to Glacier Bay as it was one of the few places not effected by the fires, but now I see new fires in the Yukon have inundated that area with smoke as well. So instead of broad landscapes with fields of flowers, I will probably be sticking to closeups and maybe more underwater salmon photos. 
I believe this is Mountain Harebell, a member of the Bluebell Family, Seward, Alaska.
I captured this last night up on Mt. Marathon. I thought the rock was a strong enough subject without the wildflowers, but the flowers were a nice colorful bonus!
Between office work, photographing porcupines and Mt. Marathon, it was a busy day yesterday, but with this amazing stretch of weather we are having – it is hard to stop!
Great news on the baby porcupine in yesterday’s post. Last night it was spotted reunited with it’s mother! I understand the mother was about 5 times the size of this little guy.
A baby porcupine, near Seward, Alaska.
I’m just in from photographing this cute little guy! I want to thank the wonderful owners of Log Dreamin Bed and Breakfast for tipping me off on this youngster.
I have never seen a baby porcupine, I think it is a fairly rare sight. As exciting as it was to watch such an animal feed and wander about, a part of me couldn’t help but be sad. Typically, the single off-spring of a porcupine female stays very close the it’s mother, and isn’t fully weaned and able to leave the den site until October. The adult porcupine typcially seen in this area hasn’t been spotted in weeks – I’m not so sure this one isn’t now on his own. seeing such a young, typcially nocturnal, forest dwelling animal out in the open during the day is probably not a good sign – it probably isn’t learning these things from its mother. I hope it makes it!
Update: Later this evening, this little guy was reunited with it’s mother! I was told the adult was about 5 times the size of the baby.
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!
A Humpback Whale waves its flipper, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
This is another photo from a week ago – it is alway a treat to find these whales close to this wonderful coastline!
Steller Sea Lions, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
Another photo from last week. I really liked the colors and patterns created by the moss and lichen on the rocks.
This haul-out faces out into the Gulf of Alaska – I don’t think I have ever seen the water this calm, not even the slightest wave!
Cataract Cove, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
This in another photo from my time in Kenai Fjords National Park last week. Can you spot the mountain goat? It is amazing where these guys live! Below is a little closer photo which will give away the Mountain Goat’s location.
Mountain Goat, Cataract Cove, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
Ken Burns with producer Dayton Duncan filming in Aialik Bay, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
The famous filmmaker Ken Burns will be in Anchorage, Alaska this Thursday evening talking about and previewing clips from his newest film: The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. For more details, visit Alaska Geographic.
I was fortunate enough to spend 3 days with Ken and his crew in Kenai Fjords a few years ago while he was working on this film. I gotta say Ken was a fascinating individual. His creativity goes without saying, but he is a wonderful story teller with a hilarious sense of humor – we had lots of laughs on that trip. If you find yourself anywhere near Anchorage on Thursday, hearing Ken speak, and seeing some of his film clips should be highly worthwhile!
Northwestern Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
Yesterday I took a boat tour into Kenai Fjords National Park and visited the amazing Northwestern Fjord. It had been a few years since I had visited this part of the Park, and I was glad to see the ice hadn’t receded too much, nothing like what we have seen at Exit Glacier. For comparison, the above photo is the right hand portion of the glacier that you see in this 6 year old photo of Northwestern Glacier (by the way, Alaska Magazine did a really nice double page spreed with this photo in this months issue!).
I am so lucky to live next to such amazing country! The Travel Channel calls the coast of Kenai Fjords National Park one of the top 10 natural wonders of the world – for good reason!
Special thanks to Cathy Gonzalez with Log Dreamin’ Bed and Breakfast for helping with my arrangements!
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.
Silt embedded into the wall of a glacier cave, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
This probably isn’t for everyone, but I liked the abstract patterns created by the layers of silt in this icy wall. I used a 400 mm telephoto to zero in on the detail while safely standing outside the cave.
Ice Cave, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
It is hard to get a sense of scale, but this was a huge cave – the ceiling was a good 8 feet in height. It followed the small creek over to the right out of this frame. I found this last Friday – the bright sunny skies helped illuminate the ice inside the cave with a beautiful blue glow.
I photographed this from outside the cave looking in. These caves can be fun to explore, but this one was way to sketchy, there is no way I would enter a cave like this – it looked like huge hunks of ice could fall at any momment!
- A red tulip in our front yard, Seward, Alaska.
I glanced outside just a few minutes ago and noticed the overnight fog and rain had coated Janine’s tulips with some wonderful water drops. Just about the time I set my camera up, a little bit of sunlight started to break through the fog perfectly illuminating the flowers – it looked like they were glowing red!
This is hot off the press, just a few minutes old, unless of course you are reading this hours or days later.
Paradise Creek, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
Thanks to some challenging water crossings, this area gets few, if any visitors in the summer. I have skied up here in the winter, and thought the area was beautiful, but have never been able to get up here in the summer. Thanks to some low water levels, Janine and I along with some friends of ours were finally able to get up here yesterday for some scouting.
I think the area has some real potential. I love the clear water, something you don’t see much of around here thanks to the numerous glaciers. Glacier rivers tend to be very muddy looking thanks to the silt. This is looking up an unnamed valley where an unnamed creek flows in from the right. Paradise Creek is coming in from the left. We were able to make it another mile or two before steep cliffs and swift water blocked our progress. It was a great day! And now I know it is a place worth returning to for good light!
This year, I'm very excited to report that we have the cover image for all three Bell's Travel Guides!
In my last post, in response to a question I shared information about our top grossing photos. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the above photo. The boxing bear cub image you see on this travel guide hasn’t been used in an advertising campaign, this kept it off the top grossing list, but in terms of total number of sales, it has to be our most popular image. [click to continue…]
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. [click to continue…]
Sentinel Lighthouse, Southeast Alaska.
One of our regular magazine clients contacted us earlier this week looking for photos of the Sentinel Lighthouse – they were unable to find one on our website. So we dug through our old slide files and sure enough found this image which we scanned and sent off. We have thousands of old slides like this that may have some value, but most just sit and take up valuable room in file cabinets. [click to continue…]
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…]
