Stormy Weather

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Chugach, Photos, Travel 8 Comments

Stormy Weather

Clouds in the mountains of the Chugach National Forest surrounding Seward, Alaska.  This was last (Wednesday) night.

This is the first time I have seen the tops of the mountains in more than a week.  I figure, if we are going to have stormy weather, it might as well be really stormy!  And it has – we have been getting almost an inch of rain a day, with almost 2 inches falling on Saturday.  I noticed yesterday that the airport was flooded.  

This weather isn’t that unusual for this time of year, September is our wettest month. On average we receive 10.36 inches for the month of September. 

It has made it easy to be in the office!

Bridge to Nowhere Photo

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Photos, Travel 16 Comments

Bridge to Nowhere Photo

Bridge to Nowhere photo, Ketchikan, Alaska.

Last summer while I was in Ketchikan, I hiked up the hill above town to get a better perspective of the destination for the “Bridge to Nowhere”.  I never did anything with this photo, once the funding was lost and the project fell out of the news, the image had little value.  Now, thanks to recent news events, this image just may have a life after all. Read More

More Fair Fun!

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Photos, Travel 10 Comments

Alaska State Fair

Alaska State Fair, Palmer, Alaska.

Earlier this summer I started doing a series of lessons sharing what I know about outdoor and nature photography.  Well, summer in Alaska kind of kept me distracted from working on more posts.  With rain in the forecast for as far as I can see – this weekend may be a good time to work on some more of this series!

Digital Camera Sensor Cleaning

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Chugach, How to, Miscellaneous, Photos 7 Comments

 Alpenglow

This was from last Saturday in the Chugach National Forest, about 12 miles from Seward, Alaska.  I used two graduated neutral density filters – one on the mountain, the other for the reflection.

Sensor dust can really show in images like this where you have a uniform color as you do with the sky, and when you are stopped down, because the increased depth of field helps to show your dust spots. Read More

Alaska State Fair

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Photos, Travel 8 Comments

Alaska State Fair

Alaska State Fair, Palmer Alaska.

I would like to say I was the first to come up with the idea for really long exposures and streaking lights, but I’m far from it.  It is still a fun technique to play around with at a place like this!

Richard Wong with The Non-Clamorous Side of Photography recently interviewed me with some interesting questions – you can read my responses here:  Non-Glamorous Side of Photography.

Wasilla Alaska

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Photos, Travel 13 Comments

Wasilla Alaska

Finger Lake, Wasilla, Alaska.

This was from Friday in Wasilla.  We went up there for some photography, and to visit my parents and sister’s family.   Ironically, Wasilla became famous on this same day when John McCain selected Sarah Palin for his running mate.  I probably should have stuck around for some more photography of the area because it will probably be in demand, but it was sunny, and I was anxious to photograph landscapes back in Seward.  Those should show up here in a couple of days. 

I gotta say, it was almost surreal to see Sarah’s husband, Todd Palin standing up there on national TV smiling and waving to the crowd.  You see I have known Todd for some 30 years – since we were kids growing up in Glennallen.  Guys I hung out with drinking beer and doing other crazy things just don’t seem to grow up and appear on national TV!  Well at least until now.  To see him standing there with his little daughter, a girl that plays with my little niece, suddenly made the world seem very small.

I sure don’t envy what they are about to go through, but I do look forward to one day, probably many years from now, sitting down and hearing his stories! 

Puffin Photos

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Lake Clark, Photos, Travel, Wildlife 8 Comments

Puffin Photos

Horned Puffin.

We have finished our updates to our website and have a new section of Puffin photos.  Puffin rock!  We have also updated our section of bear photos.  Come to think of it, bears rock too!

In addition, we were able to migrate our all 4,970 pages of our website from the obsolete FrontPage to a more more appropriate program, Dreamweaver.  What a huge relief!

Fishing Bears

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Lake Clark, Photos, Travel 4 Comments

Lake Clark National Park Fishing

Bears aren’t the only ones to hit Silver Salmon Creek for fish – its just that the bears have the right of way!  When the bears approach, the fishermen back out of the river and bunch up for safety.  If you hook a fish and a bear shows up, you have to cut it loose. 

This little cub seemed as intrigued by the people, as the people in the bear.

We now new sections on our website for Lake Clark National Park, And Halibut Cove, Alaska.