A Foggy Night with Stars Above

The night has always been one of my favorite times of the day. I can be tired all day long and then as soon as the sun sets, the night brings me energy and with that new energy I start to imagine what I can create in the dark natural studio of black sky.

I've been planning a photograph around this building for a while, but the shot I've been planning involves a model clam digging. Unfortunately, you cannot dig clams in this area because of the high levels of mercury content left over form the Treadwell Mine. This building is the old water pump house resting on the old mine tailings. The pump house never worked properly and the mine as well as the town of Treadwell burned to the ground and this is one of the few reminders that there was ever a town.

This photograph was taken with a half moon rising camera left pretty far behind me. The mountains in the background are covered by a lowering fog that almost compromised the photograph and almost socked in the sky. The purplish light coming form the left side of the image is light pollution from Douglas and Juneau.



As always, more images are available on my website

In the Belly of a Glacier

Today Libby and I went on a hike on the East Glacier Trail and went searching for some old mine ruins. I showed her a tunnel that had been dug through the side of a mountain. We followed the tunnel until it stopped and then took some photographs and in the process she tried to light my leg on fire.

Here is a photo from today.




Last Wednesday, Libby and I went to the Mendenhall Glacier Ice caves. As with most of our adventures we had cameras in hand trying to capture the moment and I realized that it was near impossible to capture the majestic beauty that surrounded us as we stood underneath the belly of the mighty Mendenhall Glacier, but why not?

Here are some photos from last week.

Skiing on Islands

Well, when you ski on an island in Alaska you get the great advantage of seeing other islands and the Pacific Ocean in between and Pittman's Ridge at Eagle Crest ski area is the perfect place to see this.

The Eagle Crest ski area is closed during the week so my friend Libby and I decided that it was a perfect time to make the hike up to The Ridge. There are not many crowds in Juneau, and if you ever have to wait in line at a lift, even for a few moments then that is considered busy, but on this day there were very few people out and about. Mostly little specs on other mountains enjoying the same view as us.

Once at the top of Pittman's Ridge you can get a clear view of Admiralty Island, which is where this photograph was taken. Admiralty is most know for its dense population of brown bears and has very steep mountains.

New Whale Photo

Photos from Last Week

So being in Alaska is always cool you just have to force yourself to go outside and brave the weather every now and then. These photos are from last week. The clouds finally gave way to very cold temps and clear skies.

Brandon, Elisabeth and I went out to the Mendenhall Glacier on one of these days to check out some ice caves. We didn't really find anything too large, but did find some good size ice blocks. On the way over Brandon found a piece of ice and held it up for a pretty cool portrait.

That same night, there was a low forecast for the northern lights and I was hoping that maybe my camera would pick them up even though my eyes couldn't see them. With long exposures, you sometimes get unseen things in your photograph. This was not really the case, but I did manage to create a good image and a small fire in the cold night.

You can view more images at my website.