Forest Fires - completing the circle

Eagle Trail Fire

Early this summer, as Alaska was transitioning into warmer weather, the dry conditions gave way to many forest fires across the state. You may have remembered the entry I made on the Eagle Trail forest fire. Since smoke is not a friend to a landscape photographer (in general) I decided to go ahead and photograph it instead of trying to run from it. As a note to sort of complete the circle, it turned out that Alaska magazine ran an article on forest fires in the November 2010 issue and I had a few images from that shoot included. I did not know their editorial schedule at the time, but it’s always good to see speculative photo shoots complete the circle to publication. Here are a few that were published. Thanks to the fire crew guys that helped me out. In both shots I used the 16-35mm wide angle. An opening spread generally needs room for text as an introductory image, and a some breathable space. Like cover images, thinking through a publication endpoint helps define composition to some degree. In this case, the sky and smoke is an obvious component so it simply works out well.