A few months ago, Gray Line of Alaska contacted me about licensing my image of a brown bear surrounded by lupine for the cover of their 2010 brochure. Here is what the cover looks like. You can also download the brochure here. I photographed this brown bear during my week-long visit to Lituya Bay on the remote outer coast of Glacier Bay National Park in June 2009. You can read how I created this image in my original blog post.
BLECH! That is exactly what I felt like doing during my recent aerial shoot of Mt Fairweather. My pilot gave me ample opportunities to back out of the flight. He told me that even though the weather was clear in Haines that it was going to be a bumpy ride over Glacier Bay National Park to the outer coast. I repeatedly assured him that I was an experienced photographer who was not afraid of anything. I was wrong.
While the initial flight went smoothly, the enormous lenticular cloud over the summit of Mt Fairweather in the distance was indication that it was going to get a lot more interesting. I was disappointed that I was not going to photograph the summit, but my compensation was this dramatic multi-layered cloud. I also anticipated that my earlier photos were going to have the best light since the sunset was going to be prematurely blocked by marine clouds on the horizon. As promised, the flight eventually became much rougher as we flew over the highest mountains en route to the outer coast. As we worked the small plane into position to start taking pictures, I looked down 14,000 feet to Lituya Bay and reminisced about the week that I spent there photographing wildflowers in June 2009. I opened the window every few minutes, but the combination of cold air rushing in and turbulence made me regret not having taken a Dramamine earlier. The prominent ridges and shadows beneath the mountain appealed to my vision of how I wanted to photograph the mountain. I had to concentrate like never before in order to open the window and use my camera through the hard-banking and bumps. Physically, this was one of the most challenging photos that I have created, but I am pleased with the results.
This image of Mt McKinley is from the sunrise flight that I did over the Alaska Range in September. I had a lot of fun flying with the doors removed; the only downside was that I had to wear so many clothes to stay warm. I got a deal from pilot Don Lee to fly in his small Piper aircraft, but I forgot to consider that a smaller plane might not be able to reach the altitude that I like to shoot from. We only managed to coax the plane up to about 9000′, rather than the 12,000′ elevation that I normally shoot from in a Cessna. However, if I had been up any higher, the glaciers and ridges would not have provided as much depth leading up to the summit. I created this image with my Canon 5DmkII and Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4 ZE lens.
Here is another photo that I created during my recent Banff National Park photo tour. I am surprised by how much I like this image, since I remember walking away from this shoot in a dour mood after being denied an epic sunset. While scouting the river, I discovered this clearing which framed the mountains and allowed flowing water for my foreground. The spot-light illuminating the mountain happened so briefly that I could not have created this image had I not had my camera set up in advance. Using my Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer in the shade of the river bank required an exposure of a 1/2 second or longer. This exposure rendered the water silky smooth. I also used my 3-stop Hard graduated neutral density filter to balance the exposure. I placed the filter above the trees at a slight angle down and to the right. Another interesting technical note is that I used my Canon 17-40mm f4 lens for the first time in a while in order to shoot this super-wide image. I love my Carl Zeiss lenses, but they are expensive so I do not own one that is wider than 28mm. It was a beautiful fall day to be out in the woods. I can still hear the gentle rush of the river, and there is nothing quite as affirming as a few “Hey, bears!” when walking back to the car through grizzly country in the dark.
In September, I took advantage of a week of spectacular weather in Alaska, and did some aerial photography of the Alaska Range. My primary ambition on this flight was to photograph Mt McKinley at sunset, but I departed Talkeetna airport early enough to also do some “sight-seeing”. As the small plane I chartered approached the mountains, we first flew up the dramatic Ruth Gorge. Back when I used to climb, I read a lot of mountaineering stories about the granite spires of the Ruth Gorge, so it was nice to finally see these monster walls for myself. I was particularly impressed with the Moose’s Tooth. Sunset light never penetrates this location due to the mountains above the Ruth Amphitheater, but in this image the clouds clinging to the summit ridge added a layer of drama. Since I no longer climb, I am unlikely to summit this granite myself, but I had an amazing experience flying so close.
When I shoot aerials, there are a few things that are required in order to create the images that I want. First, I need a pilot who is competent and knowledgeable of the local geography. Next, the window of the airplane must lift up or the door must be removed in order to have an unobstructed view. I need good communication with my pilot in order to tell him/her where to position the plane. Once on location, I need to decide quickly what is the best composition while the plane is moving and the light is changing. Finally, I use a normal lens like my Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4 ZE lens to capture a wide shot that doesn’t include the wing of the plane. During each brief pass at my composition I take 10 to 20 photos at 4fps with my Canon 5DmkII. Once I’m back home editing my images, I look for the image with the strongest composition, nicest light, and, hopefully, a level horizon.
Picture Lake is one of the most iconic, and thus photographed, locations in my home state of Washington. The reflection of Mt Shuksan from the lake on a clear day is postcard perfect. In September, I returned to Picture Lake for the first time in a several years while instructing 2 private photography tour clients from Mexico. They had never been here before, so they were giddy with the perfect shooting conditions. Over the years, I have sold my original medium format film image of this scene numerous times, but I prefer this updated digital photo to the original. I created this image with my Canon 5DmkII, Carl Zeiss 35mm f2 ZE lens, and Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer and 4-stop Soft Graduated Neutral Density filters on a tripod with minimal processing in Aperture 3. As always, the secret ingredient of this image was lots of patience waiting for hikers to walk out of the scene and a perfect reflection when the breeze stopped blowing.
I created this interesting river rapid abstract during my recent Banff National Park photography tour. It was damn cold that morning at the Columbia Icefields. There was a fresh dusting of snow on the ground and the rocks near this river were covered in ice. The sunrise was non-eventful, but about the time that one of my clients (from LA) felt that he was freezing to death and went back to the car to turn on the heater, the sun came up over the mountains at a very low angle which back-lit this small river. The boulder shadows and white water were too much for me to resist, so I pulled my camera back out and explored the simple beauty of the rapids, water, and splashes with my 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens. Normally, I would have used an exposure of 1/2 second or longer to render the water silky smooth, but I wanted to capture the random splashes as they burst above the river so I used a shorter exposure of about 1/4 second.
I created this dramatic image of Castle Mountain on the first night of my recent Banff National Park Photography Tour. Unlike many of the famous viewpoints in the US National Parks, we had this beautiful vista all to ourselves. This location is right next to the road, making this view from along the banks of the Bow River one of Banff’s most iconic landscape photos. Many landscape photographers seem to be over-infatuated with the orange-red light at sunset. I don’t blame them, but I often find my most successful images earlier during the golden hour before sunset or after sunrise. This image is a perfect example of this early sunlight still at a high enough angle above the horizon to illuminate the entire scene. Any later and the trees are all just dark silhouettes (which they were and I have pictures of). The ominous clouds above the mountain add drama and help focus the viewer’s attention onto the mountain in the middle of the scene. I created this image with my Canon 5DmkII, Carl Zeiss 28mm f2 ZE lens, Singh-Ray LB Warming polarizer, and 4-stop Soft Graduated Neutral Density filter. On a tripod, of course.
The most important thing I teach my photography tour clients is how to anticipate a shot. Let’s use my new image of the fall colors on Mazama Ridge as an example of when to shoot. When I was at Mount Rainier National Park last Friday, the sky was clear blue without a single cloud on the horizon. I knew that the best image in these conditions would be when the angle of the sunlight was a few degrees above the horizon and still yellow or orange in color. Experience has taught me where the sun would go down, but I confirmed my guess by using my SunSeeker app on my iPhone. I wanted to shoot this scene as the sunset light settled into the trees and danced across the foliage in front of my camera. The tree shadows added some mystery to an otherwise beautiful but non-dramatic scene. This light only lasted for about 30 seconds before the foliage went into complete shade. I used my Carl Zeiss 35mm f2 ZE lens along with my Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer and 2-stop Hard Graduated Neutral Density filter to create this image using only 1 exposure which required minimal processing.
During my recent Alaska trip, I was able to see Mt McKinley almost everyday due to the perfect clear weather. To see the mountain even 1 day is very rare, let alone for 10 days straight. My normal landscape images from the ground were just not very exciting, so I hired a small plane 3 times with various friends in order to fly over the Alaska Range at sunset and sunrise. I did not get the sunset image that I was after on my first flight, but I figured out exactly where I wanted to return to shoot on my second flight. I liked this location because I was slightly back from Mt McKinley (left) and Mt Foraker (right) and able to line them up with these repetitive ridges giving the image some depth rather than just a simple mountain portrait.
I created this image while hand-holding my Canon 5DmkII and Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4 ZE lens with the airplane’s window open so that I could shoot without the glass obstructing my view. My camera body shoots 4fps. If I hold down the shutter release button I get about 12 images before I fill-up the camera’s memory buffer. With my Sandisk 16GB Extreme CF memory cards, I can photograph almost 600 images before my card is full. That comes out to only 2.5 minutes of actual shooting before I fill-up the card! Over the course of almost 3 hours of flying that is a minimal amount of time. There is a lot of teamwork and communication involved between me and the pilot in order for me to create an aerial image like this. Of course, when I am back home I then have to edit 3000 images of the exact same thing looking for minor variations to find the image with which I am happiest.
