Category Archive

A cargo ship coated with thick ice, Seward, Alaska.

Although we received some snow this past weekend, today is sunny and warmer with more of the same on the way.  Today also marks the arrival of the first cruise ship of the season.  I say bring on summer!

So, it does seem a bit odd to be editing images from this past winter.  This photo was taken at the end of January – the coldest January on record for much of this area.  What you see here is the railing and a walkway for the ship crew.  So much thick ice had accumulated while the ship was at sea that this passageway has been nearly completed encased with ice!  Fortunately the first cruse ship of the season won’t have to worry about conditions like this.

A stand up paddle boarder surfing the bore tide, Turnagain Arm, Alaska.

The difference between the low tide and the high tide on Turnagain Arm on Monday was an incredible 43 feet!  Well 42.96 to be exact.  Last year we never did see a tide as low as Monday’s and this year only June 5th will be lower – mark your calenders it could be a great show at a convenient evening time.

When the water level rises that much in such a short period of time, the incoming tide begins as a wave of water sometime 6 feet tall or more.  This wave of water is called a bore tide.  The wide area of land you see just beyond the surfer was completely covered by water just a short time after this photo.

So given the extreme tide on Monday, expectations were high for a really large wave, and this brought lots of onlookers, surfers and photographers including a photographer from Seward (me).

For some reason a big wave never did form – as you can see here, the wave isn’t even up to the surfers waist.  I have seen plenty of bore tides just as big on my drives back and forth to Seward over the years.  But, it was a beautiful Alaskan evening!

The Seward Boat Harbor at sunset, Alaska.

This was from last night a little after 10:00 – yes the days are already very long!  What a beautiful evening!

Aerial of Seward, Alaska.

As much as I love to travel, I gotta say after 2.5 months on the road that it is nice to be home!  It is sure hard to beat the dramatic, snow covered mountains this time of year!

It should be a busy spring – I already have a fair amount of assignment work piling up – I’m looking forward to Summer!

This is a photo from a couple of Augusts ago – I had hoped to post a new photo of Northern Lights.  After a long, tiring day of travel from Arizona to Seward, I dragged myself out of bed at mid-night and went looking for the lights without success – that was painful.  So, I’m going with an older aerial for now.

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!