Photo Blog – Photography Blog for Niebrugge Images
Photo blog featuring outdoor, travel and nature photos.
From the category archives:
Horned Puffin, near Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.
I wanted to keep sharing brown bear photos, but figured I better mix it up a bit – plus, we did photograph other things beside bears last week, including a black bear, bald eagles and horned and tufted puffin.
These birds are so cute and colorful – they are like living cartoon characters!
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A young cub watched intently as its mother digs for clams, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.
I find it fascinating to watch wildlife perform a learned behavior, and watching coastal brown bears dig for clams is no exception. Really, it is amazing! Although they may have different techniques for opening the clams, they really can become efficient clam diggers.
This was one of two cubs I had watched as spring cubs last year. It was great to see them still doing well. One of the cubs had actually learned to dig for its own clams. It had to dig twice as hard as its mother, and it struggled to open them, but you could tell he was becoming self-sufficient.
This was the other cub who had not mastered the skill yet, and would watch intently as the mother dug clam after clam. This is what you see here. I would think it is just a matter of time until this cub begins digging for clams as well.
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A sow and cub heading out in search of clams, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.
This sow and cub where heading out to dig for clams – a fascinating activity to watch and photograph – I’ll have more on this in my next post.
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A brown bear looking for clams along the coast, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.
If I was to expose this enough to show detail in the bear, I would have blown out the warm beautiful sunrise light. So, I purposely underexposed this so that I would just have the silhouette and the wonderful light.
This was captured with a 600mm at f/4.5, 320 iso and 1/2500 of a second on a Canon 7D.
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A brown bear and bald eagle both watch for salmon during this years bear photo tour - Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.
Well I have some bad news, and good news regarding next years Alaska Bear and Puffin Photo Tour.
The bad news was – we have a tentative person interested in our final spot leaving me without any openings going into the prime booking season!
Now the good news – I was able to obtain another week during 2012! I am really fortunate to obtain such a great week, as David, the lodge owner is now having to turn away groups thanks to the popularity of this location! I am very grateful to be able to offer two trips a summer!
My second week being added is at the end of June – the 23rd to the 29th. I will be interested to see what it is like that time of year. I do remember comments made by Jenny, my former bear guide – she said the end of June was her favorite time of year. Kevin, the park ranger in the area for the past 10 years (the first 4 in a tent! ) has also said late June is one of her favorite times as well. Even Rick, my bear guide this year expressed a preference for late June. So I’m excited to see what it is like then!
What are the advantages of going in June? Possibly more bears, especially spring cubs. This year they were seeing 6 spring cubs by the end of June – that was down to 1 by August. Short, rich green grass along with fields wildflower like lupine should be in nice bloom. Mating activity also takes place during June offering some unique interaction and bringing more bores (males) into the area.
What are the advantages of going in August? There are two big ones. Fishing bears – bears catching and eating salmon is always high on the list of advantages of August. The other advantage is perching puffin – they may not perch as much in June, but they will be flying.
If you are interested or have any questions, please feel free to email or call. I anticipate these trips will fill fairly quick – certainly by Christmas. For more information, visit our page for the Alaska bear and puffin photography tour.
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Grizzly bear at sunrise, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.
We had some wonderful light on my trip last week, and the warm glow on this brown / grizzly bear was no exception!
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Brown bear sow looks intently for salmon, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.
We had great weather during last weeks bear photo tour! It was such a treat, I really had fun. The nice weather did make for some long days, but for light like this, it was well worth it!
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Brown bears, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.
I have a brief minute so I thought I would share a quick photo from this morning. We are having a great trip!
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Brown Bear, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.
The first hour into my Alaska bear photo tour - things are starting great!
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Sunset in Northwestern Fjord, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
Here is the view from the boat from our second nights anchorage last Saturday night. We had some nice light the next morning as well – what a great trip! This was our first nights stop: Aialik Glacier.
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Sea Otters, Resurrection Bay, near Seward, Alaska.
Our trip last weekend couldn’t have started off any better after finding two extremely cooperative sea otters. After spending a bit of time photographing them, we watched as two other otters (say that fast) came swimming from near shore and joined the first two. The four of them put on some show as they played silly otter games. 
This was captured with a Canon 7D with only a 70-200 and 1.4 converter at f/6.3, 5ooth a second and ISO 400.
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Sunrise over Aialik Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
I photographed this from the boat during last weekends Alaska photo tour into Kenai Fjords – this is where we anchored for the first night! And if this view wasn’t enough – we could spot bears on the nearby beach! This is the same beach we went to shore on and photographed bears and icebergs.
Unlike the cruise-ships, my tour doesn’t offer a formal night – that is unless jeans and xtra-tough boots count as formal ware. But, I think this kind of view more then makes up for it!
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Iceberg in front of Aialik Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
Just got home from the first of a couple of my Alaska photo tours – Kenai Fjords photo tour. Wow, what an awesome trip! The weather was so nice that we were even in short sleeve shirts around the glaciers! Fortunately one of the guests brought sunscreen which we had to ration through out the trip – who would have thought that would happen!
And the photo opportunities were endless! The most cooperative sea otters I have ever spent time with. Many bears, including one that got greedy and tried to carry off two big salmon at once! We saw another bear swimming out in the ocean. Lots of humpback whales, birds and other wildlife. We even had nice light for both sunrise and sunset – it was such a great trip! And if that wasn’t enough, I was joined by a really fun, passionate group of photographers which just made the trip that much more enjoyable. I think we literally spent more time laughing than sleeping – just how it should be.
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Janine on the trail to Spencer Glacier, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.
How is this – I’m playing my excuse in advance for my possible lack of photo blog activity!
Tomorrow morning I head out on a boat for a few days as part of my Kenai Fjords photo tour. It is shaping up to be an epic trip – there have been reports of a large number of whales, and the weather is even looking great!
I then have a steady series of private tours everyday right up to my week long bear and puffin tour. The bear tour is also shaping up to be great with reports of a number of spring cubs! You can’t beat spring cubs!
I should have a bunch of new photos to share, and when I get a chance as I come and go, I will do updates here and there – but, if you don’t hear from me for awhile, you will know why, and I’ll be back soon!
Now I need to go mow the lawn so that I can find the house when I return!
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Wildflowers at Spencer Glacier, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.
Here is another new photo from our overnight trip to Spencer Glacier last week.
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Matanuska Glacier, Alaska.
When out on the glacier you really lose all sense of scale. The lack of scale is lost even further in photographs. So, I was glad to have a climber walk past us and up on to the massive ice walls. If you can spot the climber, you will have a much better sense to the size of this place – so can you find him?
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Spencer Glacier, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.
Just got home from an overnight trip to the Spencer Glacier. I have past by Spencer Glacier on the Alaska Railroad many times, I have rafted passed it, even flown over and photographed it from a helicopter a couple of times – but despite my best intentions, have never spent the night out there. It has been on our “to do” list for a couple of years, and with wonderful weather moving in this past week, we decided it was the perfect time to go!
By spending the night, I was there for the best light around sunrise and sunset – although the skies completely cleared and I didn’t get the dramatic sky I was hoping for, I still found plenty of dramatic scenery! This also gave us extra time to explore the area – even put on crampons and was able to check out the glacier which is an easy three mile hike away.
Spencer Glacier has to be one of the best day trips around. You get there by catching the Alaska Railroad in Anchorage or Portage. The railroad drops you off at a small station in this beautiful remote country. The train passes back through the area a couple of hours later giving you time to hike around, or to go on a rafting trip with Chugach Adventure Guides. I photographed the rafting trip for the railroad a few years back – it is fun!
Or, if you prefer, you can do like we did and bring your camping gear in backpacks and spend the night or multiple nights. A new trail that takes you way up into the nearby mountains is almost compete – next time we will be doing it. Eventually, there will be a series of trails and huts connecting railroad stops through this entire remote country. They are working another trail this summer that will eventually connect to 5 different whistle stops. When done, It will offer easy access to some amazing country!
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Sunrise at the Matanuska Glacier, Alaska.
I have been driving past this beautiful glacier since I was a youngster living with my parents in Copper Center – but, in all these years, I have never taken the extra time to actually drive down to the glacier itself. We finally changed that last week when we camped next to the front edge of the glacier – in short, what a cool place! Literally and figuratively of course. Spent a lot of time hiking around and exploring, this area is really fun, I look forward to returning for more!
Even though I live just a few miles from a beautiful glacier, Exit Glacier, it was nice to be able to explore a place without the rules, signs and roped off areas that you have in a National Park. Here, you access the Matanuska Glacier via private property, pay your fees and sign a waiver and then can be as smart or stupid as you would like.
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Fireweed, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.
Let me say thanks for all the nice comments on my last post. Even though most of the comments and my responses are now gone, I was able to read them and really appreciate it. I had a problem with an update to my blog and had to revert to a backup that was a day or two old so unfortunately I lost a lot of the comments.
By the way, this is another photo from this past week out in the amazing Chugach National Forest. Unfortunately I didn’t get the light I did in the last photo, but I still thought it was a pretty scene.
So, as if it wasn’t hard enough keeping up with the blog, Facebook and Twitter, there now is another contender in the online social world, Google +. I started playing around with Google + earlier this week, if you are already there let me know so that I can add you to my circle. If you aren’t there, but are interested, let me know and I can send you an invite. Here is my Google + page.
Looks like I may be on the road for a few days – hopefully I will have some new stuff once I return.
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Chugach National Forest near Seward, Alaska.
I looked out the window at 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning and conditions were looking pretty good for a colorful sunrise as there was a gap near the horizon to the North. At 4:30 a.m., my lack of sleep paid off as I was rewarded with this beautiful morning!
Because the mountains extend so far to the Northwest and Northeast, we rarely see colorful sunrises or sunsets around here in the summer – the rising / setting sun just doesn’t have the needed gap to illuminate the underside of the clouds. Our best skies usually happen in the winter when the sun is rising and setting to the South over the ocean. What a treat!
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4th of July Parade, Seward, Alaska.
I’m sure some people find small town parades kinda hokey, but when you live in the town, the small, home town parade is cool.
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False Hellebore, Seward, Alaska.
Saturday morning in Seward it was cloudy with light rain and no wind – perfect conditions for close-up photography! So I headed up Mt Marathon a ways and photographed some False Hellebore – they are such photogenic plants, especially when they first come up – after a week or two the elements really take the toll on the leaves.
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Sunrise in Aialik Bay, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
I was interviewed recently by the Manlleu Camera Club in Barcelona Spain. Since they asked a lot of great questions, I thought I would share a link to the interview here. I answer questions about my typical year, the best way to sell photos and who some of my inspiration have been. To read the interview, click on this link: Manlleu Camera club.
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Black bear sow in a tree, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.
So why was this black bear sow up in a tree last week? Because she had three cute little spring cubs further up the tree above her – below is one of the three, they were sure cute!
Black bear cub, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.
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