Goodbye Ice

Ron Niebrugge Alaska, Photos, Travel 12 Comments

Frozen waterfall, Seward, Alaska.

A recent photo of a frozen waterfall, Seward, Alaska.

As a travel / outdoor photographer obviously traveling is an important, and fun part of the occupation. Ironically, aside from a three week trip to Hawaii, we have been near home in Alaska non stop for the past 10 months – although I have done a few week long trips within the state.  For someone who is away from home 150 to 200 days a year – this is about the least amount of traveling I have done in the past 10 plus years..  But, don’t feel sorry for me – there is lots of awesome stuff to see and photograph in Alaska.

This lack of travel is about to change, but more on that in a minute.  I have been working extra hard during all this recent home / office time to bring some big large projects to fruition.  As you may know, for the last two years I have been experimenting and fine tuning the process of creating 3D video.  Well I have finally seen that process through full circle and this week sent out about 90 3D HD clips split between the two stock agencies who specialize in such material – one in the U.S., one in Europe.  These are agencies I had been accepted to nearly a year ago, now it will be interesting to see if they will actually make us any money – until now 3D video has been a big drain of time and money.  Time will tell and it will be interesting to see what happens.

I have also joined and submitted over a 100 regular 2D HD clips to a major U.S. agency.  This is a combination of video and time-lapses.  Again, this is an entirely new business segment for me, and one I have enjoyed .  The learning curve is definitely steep for all these projects, but I have enjoyed the challenge.

But, enough of the office time!  This weekend we fly South and pick up our travel trailer.  The first month will be spent in our favorite desert state park, Anza-Borrego.  We will be doing a lot of photography in and around the area and may take some short trips to nearby areas.  I will also be doing a photo workshop there – unfortunately, I only applied for a permit for one weekend and have had to turn a lot of people away.  After that, I don’t know where I will be going.  Probably Arizona, and maybe Nevada.  I plan on attending the 2012 NAB show again, so that means we will probably be on the road for 10 weeks or so.  It should be fun – one of the nice things about traveling is immersing myself into the creative process.  And now that I have become proficient with 3D – I look forward to doing some more of that as well.

As always, I will keep doing updates here on the blog once we get settled in next week sometime – see you then!

Comments 12

  1. Good luck on the video sales Ron. If the wildflowers are good I might head over to Anza Borrego too but we haven’t hardly had any rain this season. It’s been a weird year even for California standards. Even looking at the Yosemite web cams, there is no snow in the valley.

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    Thanks Mom!

    Hey Richard. Sounds like it will be a pretty poor year for wildflower in the desert judging from the lack of precipitation. I hear AB is really dry this year. Been watching the Yosemite cameras myself – hardly any snow! But, there is still plenty of cool things to see in AB – let me know if you do hear over that way.

  3. Cool. I’ll let you know if I’m over there. I haven’t really photographed any of the landscapes other than Henderson Canyon and Palm Canyon. When I drove in one pre-sunrise from the Salton Sea side, there looked like a lot of awesome places to explore.

  4. All the best with that Ron, I’m sure you will make it. You are talented and hard working. Problem maybe is that it takes a while before you see returns. I remember that it took almost 2 years till a saw the first cent when I was shooting 16mm. But this is a while ago and the internet and agencies have come long ways. Hang in there, you will do ok.

    Have fun traveling – I know how you feel at home. beside my workshops last year I did not even make it out of the office, with two kids now that is sure a big challenge. But we also got new stuff coming up and hopefully we can start at the end of the year again, beside the odd assignment, but I don’t always call that traveling.

    Have fun and hopefully a flower full spring in the desert.

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    Thanks Alan!

    Hey Rolf – thanks a lot for the kind words and encouragement – I really appreciate it, and a means a lot coming from you!

    Hard to believe how little travel you have done recently, especially in comparison to previous years where you really never stopped traveling! Your has really changed I imagine for the better. Thanks again.

  6. Have a good trip but spare a thought for me — battling my way through slush and low temperatures to get to prison every night to work !! I look forward to some photos to bring some warmth to my chilly life at present !!

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