Below you'll find a list of all posts from May, 2011
Resurrection Bay at sunset, Seward, Alaska.
Today on the photo blog – a recent sunset along Resurrection Bay.
Official sunset in Seward right now is about 11:00 p.m. Because the sun sets at a gradual angle in relationship to the horizon – we maintain twilight light much longer then places further south. Combine that with a sunrise a little before 5:00, and you can see it really doesn’t get totally dark here right now – and it isn’t even June – the days are still getting longer!
HDL Magazine based in Israel did a real nice feature on me – I believe it should be the current issue. I think it was a nice feature, but since I don’t read Hebrew, I suppose they could be saying a lot of mean things and I wouldn’t know it. But, I don’t think so – the article was based off of an extensive interview from earlier this winter.
The first 3 photos are all from Kenai Fjords National Park, the rest from Prince William Sound, except for one which was captured in Grand Teton National Park.
Kennicott Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.
Last week I made a quick trip out to the the Copper River Valley, Glennallen area which is the gateway to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I was out there to give a commencement speech at my old High School. It was a great experience – really a lot of fun. It appeared the whole town was in attendance supporting the 16 seniors, that is one of the great things about small towns.
A few people have asked about my speech so I thought I would share it here. This was a draft version from a few days before – I changed a few things on the fly, but it pretty much follows what I said. Now admittedly, if you did not grow up in interior Alaska, the first half of the speech won’t be too applicable and you may want to jump down to the second half. Here it is:Read More
Mount Drum, Wrangell-St Elias National Park, Alaska.
This was at sunset Monday night – seeing this mountain always brings back fond memories. I would often see this mountain on my drive between home and school, and it always looked different.
At just over 12,000 feet, it really isn’t that tall. What makes it impressive is the vertical relief. It rises over 11,000 feet from the banks of the Copper River where I’m standing to the summit.
I had a short, but very fun trip out to Glennallen. I think the commencement speech went well, and I was able to briefly see all kinds of old friends. I also saw a surprising amount of wildlife including a beautiful fox and a mink – but didn’t get any photos of those guys.
Erie Mine with Root Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska
Can you imagine living in the bunk house in this amazing location! And this was well before the days of Gore-tex, polypropolene and bunny boots.
I grew up along the border to the amazing Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I’m really excited to be returning to my home town early next week – get this for a wonderful honor, I’m returning to give the commencement speech at my high school. I am really excited, and have been working hard on my speech. I mention this in part to share my excitement, and in part to say I probably won’t be posting anything on the blog here again until later next week.
Inside of the Sahara Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Before my quick trip for a conference in Las Vegas this spring, I heard the Sahara Hotel and Casino would be closing down for good – actually this upcoming weekend will be the last for this 60 year old Las Vegas icon as it closes for good on May 16th.
Back in the day, this was one of the most popular places to “hang outs” if you were someone famous – or, wanted to see someone famous. The Sahara often hosted members of the Rat Pack including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Famous comedians like Johnny Carson have performed shows here, heck in 1964, even the Beatles stayed here!
So, I figured I better hop on the monorail so that I could get some images of the place before it was too late. I’m kind of sorry I hadn’t photographed some of the other old hotels before they were imploded.
It is funny, typically you only have a few seconds to get a photo from inside a casino before security moves in and asks you to stop. I had a feeling that employees about to lose their jobs might be a little more complacent. Sure enough – I photographed away without problem. Even a security guard walked by without saying anything.
Makes me wonder what the rules are if you stay the last night at a hotel. Will they even bother cleaning the rooms afterwords? Can you keep the robes? Do they bother with a room deposit? I’m guessing things are probably pretty crazy that last night. I also wonder what will happen to the mono-rail station. This is the only stop on the North end of the Strip, it would be too bad to lose this convenient mass transit option – but the stop leads you right through the casino. I suppose they will come up with some kind of temporary work around. Anyway, good bye Sahara.
On my last desert trip I shot a lot of 3D video and time-lapses. I have been busy putting the time-lapses together, and since most of my subscribers here don’t have a way to view my 3D footage, I thought I would throw together some of the time-lapse clips in a 2D version so that they can be seen here. My next step is to put together the 3D versions – I’m really looking forward to seeing how the clouds in the sky look in 3D!
The footage includes a variety of places mostly in Anza-Borrego and Tonto National Forest in Arizona, along with a clip from Las Vegas. The last three scenes are my first attempts of filming from day to night – the results are pretty neat and I look forward to doing more.
V-22-Osprey, Ocotillo Wells, California.
I have heard plenty about this unique aircraft in the news over the years, but had never seen one in action. This winter, as we were driving to a location to photograph the burrowing Owls, we were surprised to see one of these planes fly in and land at a remote dirt airstrip near Ocotillo Wells. It was fascinating to see an airplane take off straight up into the air! Then, as you can see in this photo, the engines slowly began to rotate forward until they were eventually facing straight ahead like a typical aircraft, and it flew off into the distance. It was definitely one of those unexpected events I had to stop to photograph.
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