Hey Folks,
Here’s another unnamed mountain in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I skied up the Lakina River a ways to take this photo. I’m looking forward to skiing further up the river and exploring the drainage a bit more – it’s a great place to look around, and doesn’t get too many folks visiting – particularly in the winter. There wasn’t even a snow machine trail up here, which in Wrangell St. Elias National Park in the winter is pretty rare. Continue reading
Hey Folks,
Here’s another photo of some snow patterns on the mountain side. I liked the yin yang thing going on here. Converting to black and white gave me a little more flexibility with playing with the tone, etc, and accentuated the pattern.
Who said there are no polar bears in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park? 🙂
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
One of the beauties about the Alaskan winter is it’s easy to catch that sweet dawn light – and earlier. This one was taken before the sun came around the mountain side. I had a great shoot in this spot, for several hours, and got a number of cool abstract images – once the sun slipped out from hiding beyond the distant mountain top everything changed, and a myriad new scenes appeared. A magical morning, for sure.
I really like the sweeping ridge lines here, and the cool blue light of the predawn sky – I shouldn’t really say predawn, because it was, like, about noon.
Cheers
Carl
Pine Grosbeak Photo.
Hey Folks,
Sorry for the delay in posts, again. I came in to Anchorage for a few days, and have been sitting, faithfully, at my computer trying to make it start. It locked up during an update, apparently, and then I couldn’t get it to start. I managed to back up most of the data on it, though it took forever. I thought the HD was fried, but it appears no problems there. I’m still working on getting all the programs back up, etc, and it’s taking way too long. I’m about sick of this computer business – I’m ready to head back to the safety of the woods. I’ll take 40-50 below zero temperatures over technology problems anyday. This stuff is too much hassle.
I did manage to take a few bird photos in the park before I came back out. They’re tricky little critters to shoot, but lots of fun. This male Pine Grosbeak was pretty cool, and I managed to get a few images. They’re named a ‘pine’ Grosbeak because they do so love the pine or coniferous forests (I spose Coniferous Grosbeak doesn’t sound so cool a name). Technically, they’re not a true Grosbeak, but a large Finch. The scientific name for the bird is Pinicola enucleator, which is pretty fancy. ‘Pinicola’ translates as ‘pine dweller’. They’re one of the few birds who winter this far north .. all the smarter ones fly south to warmer climes.
For folks such as my father, you have to click the “play” button located directly under the photo to hear the track that goes with this photo. For folks a little more hip than my dad, you get a prize if you know who the author of the track is; composer, track title, and album, please. No googling allowed.
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
I hope you’re not tiring of Mount Blackburn. It’s an awesome mountain. One of the primary reasons I wanted to spend some time here in the winter is to catch this mountain in good light. In the summer time, when travel here is a bit easier and the weather much warmer, the good light is on the north side of the mountain. So here I am, running around at 50 deg below F trying to make a decent image of the mountain. I went up new year’s eve to shoot, and the light was amazing.
Of course, both my camera batteries died, due to the cold, and I made 3 photos, then spent my time sitting in the cold watching the alpenglow light up the mountain as if it had a fire inside. It was something special to witness, but I’ve not a single image of the event. Since then it’s been cloudy.
The weather did warm up to a comfortable 20 below though, so there’s always something positive. That and the little rubber foot off my tripod that fell off, and I thought was long gone, lost; I was wandering back to the shack just at dusk, when  I saw this little black thing half buried in the snow .. I kicked it (as I’m prone to do such things), and it was my rubber foot off my tripod. Woo hoo!
You all stay warm. I’ll try to get some images of something other than Mount Blackburn here sometime soon.
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
Owls rock!
Here’s a Northern Hawk Owl (Surnia ulula) taking flight from its perch on the top of a white spruce tree. These owls seem to be much more tolerant of my presence than their larger cousins, the Great Horned Owl. They’re also much more active during the daytime. Northern Hawk Owls tend to live in the boreal forests of the north, but do move south in leaner years when food is scarce. This year it looks like a bumper year for owls up here, so I doubt many of them will head south. Hopefully, that means I’ll get some photos. 🙂
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
Here’s a 3-toed woodpecker (three-toed woodpecker –Â Picoides dorsalis) from Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.
Welcome back, albeit briefly. I’m going to spend the next couple of months recharging a bit, and breaking from the net and blogging and writing and reading and blah, blah, blah. A little quiet time will do me good, I think. Hopefully during that time I’ll pick up some new images and also try to come up with some ideas to write about that will make the blog a little more interesting. We’ll see how that goes.
I’ll try to make a post or 2 along the way. In the meantime, you folks be careful out there.
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
Here’s an image from my most recent venture into the park. I’ve never really tried this kind of technique with photography too much, but I kind of enjoyed the results. Some of them, anyway. It was interesting to me to edit this series of photos – abstract images emote so differently, and I’ve not a lot of practice in that field, so I felt I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to be looking for.
The technical aspect of photos is so dominant in more orthodox imagery, so editing become somewhat rote; check sharpness, exposure, etc. But abstract imagery requires a different process, and I find it hard to edit Continue reading