Cloudy skies, although not good for aurora, offered some good light for afternoon photography of this family of polar bears. The sow with two cubs take shelter from the winds common to the north coast of Alaska’s arctic. Shooting directly into the wind with lightly blowing snow at temperatures around freezing present some problems with…
Every year in early October I co-guide a photo tour to Alaska’s arctic with friend and colleague Hugh Rose. We do two trips back to back actually, taking 8 photo and nature enthusiasts on a venture for the magic of the emerging arctic winter. While we are omnivorous regarding subject material, the aurora borealis, polar…
The cool weather and colorless landscape is the exit sign for autumn in Alaska’s interior. Fairbanks had an unrivaled stretch of clear skies and balmy weather for much of September. As the transition now moves quickly into the darker and cooler months of the year I’m posting this colorful photo as a goodbye to that…
Based on my last post and some interest in the process of applying split grads in LR3, I decided to show a simple illustration of that process with this landscape photo that I took in Polychrome Pass, late one night in August. A video might be better to explain all this, but there is some…
Why do I like the mountains so much? Because they deliver such quickly changing weather. The Alaska range arcs across the south central region of the state and tends to serve as a moisture block forcing the dump of precipitation on its southern side, leaving the interior of the state a more dry climate. This…
In keeping with the theme of wildlife in a contextual landscape, I took this photo in Sable Pass, which is a region of Denali Park that is off limits to hiking. From the road, I watched this bull caribou on a distant ridge and the late evening light sprinkled in a little. I was hoping…
On a very gray day with low lying clouds, a little opening in the sky dropped some light on a mountain dome along the base of Sable Mountain in Denali Park. I quickly grabbed my 100-400 and captured this fleeting moment from the sun roof of my car. The light was gone in a few…
There exist many “almost” shots in my photo experiences over the years. An adage says that “almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades”, and I don’t deal with either of those. While the “almost” encounter does not result in the acquisition of a photo, at least the photographer is left with the process, and…
This vista in Denali Park is a popular one, and I’ve photographed it in many phases of light and seasons. The vibrancy of the tundra colors in Alaska’s short autumn season are mesmerizing to say the least. First light happened on two out of 9 mornings and I chose to be at this location for…
I don’t know how many photos of Denali I have, but I know its a lot. On this morning, the second of two mornings of light in my 9 days in Denali, I decided to target Polychrome Pass for first light instead of the mountain. That was moderately successful and I’ll share that image in…