Photo tour to Alaska’s Arctic
I head out tomorrow to guide a few weeks of aurora photography tours in Alaska’s Arctic. The skies have been colorful over the past month, and I hope that continues. I’ll share some photos when opportunity rises. There are 16 excited guests all geared up and ready to make some great pictures. Let’s hope the…
The polar bears are abundant along Alaska’s arctic coast as they wait for the ice to form on the Beaufort Sea. Warm weather has kept the snow at bay, at least at this point. This curious polar bear stood up for a better view and I’ve learned by their posture when this is about to…
The arctic photo tour I’m guiding was off to a good start on the first evening as clear skies eventually revealed some aurora activity. What was particularly interesting about the display was not it’s brightness but rather the color reflection in the Koyukuk river. It’s been a busy few days and hopes are high for…
Time to take a little bend in the road of still photography and explore some of the newly bundled features in today’s quickly evolving digital cameras-HD video. Since the inclusion of HD video in the Canon 5D Mark II, I’ve enjoyed playing around with it a bit, with an emphasis on “playing”. It is less…
A few comments about photographing white subjects in white environments; in particular the issue of exposure and post production adjustments in Lightroom 2.5. Let me first state that I’ve always utilized an expose-to-the-right shooting style (you can explore that concept on luminous-landscape if you are unfamiliar with it). To summarize that briefly, it is a…
In my observations and photography in nature, I consider the polar bear to be one of the most amazing animals, exhibiting tremendous adaptation which has made them fit for survival in a harsh climate. They are generally a solitary animal, with a tremendous range of up to 1000 miles. Much of their life on the…
According to my GPS coordinates for Barter Island, Alaska on Oct 12, 2009, the maximum high angle of the sun is a mere 9 degrees. This is part of the magic of the arctic at this time of year, having a low angle of light for the entire day of shooting. However, photos can continue…
I’ve been posting a few photos and comments from a recent photo tour in Alaska’s arctic. Here is a link to a gallery of a few shots I quickly processed before heading back in the field for the second photo tour. http://alaskaphotographics.com/galleries/2009-photo-tour1/
One of the beauties of photographing in Alaska in October is that the quality of light stays relatively warm and angle-appropriate for shooting most of the day. However, there is nothing quite as dynamic as the first and last light of any day. This shot was taken about 1 hour before actual sunset, but the…
People have a keen interest in the Aurora borealis images, so I’m posting another one from my recent Arctic photo tour. We had unusually warm temperatures, and in some parts of Western Alaska, all time record high temps were set. This is usually not favorable, since the snow melts and things look pretty brown. However,…