My wife and I live in Wasilla, Alaska. Wasilla is 40 miles north of Anchorage and is home to about 6500 people.

Alaska photography is a passion of mine and I enjoy taking photographs of wolves,bears, landscapes, sports and eagles. Check out my eagle gallery.

 

I flew over Mount Redoubt last week. Check out my photo gallery under Landscapes for Redoubt photos. I also created a blog entry on our flyover so check out my blog.

 

I travel extensively around Alaska and take my camera whenever possible. My work takes me to the most remote regions of the state. I enjoy the solitude and beauty of remote Alaska and have tried to capture images to reflect that. Some of the places I visit may be familiar because they are on the Iditarod trail. They are quite remote and require access by small plane. We also have sites in the most remote sections of the Alaska Range. This takes me to places like Lake Clark Pass and Merrill Pass. These sites are only accessible by helicopter.

 

For fun, my wife and I will drive to Seward or Homer south of us. These are must see places to visit while in Alaska. Although they are very crowded in the summer, there is some spectacular scenery and lots of activities for tourists. Heading north finds us having coffee in Talkeetna. Talkeetna is a jumping off place for Denali climbers and is buzzing with activity in the summer. You can get some great views of Denali from Talkeetna. We generally stay away from Denali National Park in the height of tourist season and prefer to hike or ride our 4-wheelers south of the park. If you visit Alaska, Denali National Park should be at the top of your list for places to see. Last year I was fortunate enough to get a lottery ticket which allowed me to drive my truck to Wonder Lake in mid-September.

 

One of my Denali photos made the cover of our local phone company's calendar. It was also September.

 

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You can contact me, Mike Criss at mdcriss@gmail.com.

 

Visit my photo galleries for some of my favorite photos.

 

Have an iPhone/iTouch? Try my mobile favorites gallery at Mobile Favorites

 

Visit my Flickr account for my most recent photos.

 

Homer Alaska is one of my favorite destinations. Homer is 223 miles from Anchorage and takes about 5 hours depending on weather, road conditions and traffic. In the summer, thousands of tourists and Alaskans alike travel to Homer. The Seward Highway is notorious for traffic and accidents so be very careful driving.

You will be going through Turnagain Pass on your drive down. Enjoy the scenery and stop often to check out the trails. As you come out of the pass, the road splits. You will be making a right towards Soldotna. When the fish are running you will see a lot of activity. Everything from bears, eagles and people are sharing the resources. There are some pull offs just past the Russian River Ferry where you can hike along the river. Just be careful, you are sharing the trail with bears. Sometimes, this is the easiest way to spot a bear on the other side of the river.

You will be passing through Soldotna. This is where the king salmon fishery is the biggest. A lot of people start their fishing adventure on the Kenai River from Soldotna. They have a Dairy Queen in Soldotna, it used to be the only one in the state.

Ninilchik is a small community you will pass through as well. Go down to the beach to watch tractors launch the charter boats. This is where the salmon/halibut charters launch.

When you get into town, head to the Spit. You can not miss it, just follow the road until it ends. You can find all kinds of charters, food, souvenirs, and kayak rentals on the spit. A lot of eagles hang out there in the winter. Be sure to get out of the car and walk the beaches. Sometimes you will come across an eagle feeding at low tide.

I recently traveled to Haines, Alaska. Haines is a little more than 700 miles from my home in Wasilla, but what a gorgeous drive. Taking the Glenn Highway, I traveled east until Glenallen, then the Tok Cutoff to Tok. The Alaska Highway took me to Haines Junction and then finally the Haines Highway into Haines. I have been to Haines before, but have always flown from Juneau. It was great weather so the drive was spectacular.

 

 

 

If you get a chance to see Haines take the opportunity. You will not be sorry.

 

As a photographer, I am always interested in improving my workflow. I started shooting in the late 70s using film. My son renewed my interest in photography when he purchased his first DSLR a few years ago. I now have a significant investment in Canon equipment.

Canon 40D

Canon 5D mark ii

Canon 25-105L
Canon 70-200L IS 2.8 (my favorite lens)
Canon 17-55 2.8
Canon 100-400L IS
Sigma 50 1.4 (my newest portrait lens)
Canon 1.4x and 2x extenders
Canon 580 EXII flash
Vivitar 285HV flashes
flash stands and umbrellas

 

I sold my film cameras last year after many years of great service. I do not miss them at all.

 

I use Lightroom 2.2 for my workflow and will be putting together some tutorials in the near future. Lightroom is a very powerful editing and cataloging program that has almost eliminated Photoshop from my workflow.

I use Photomatix to process my HDR images. One of my Flickr contacts has a great tutorial on using Photomatix.
http://adrianwarren.com/tutorials/HDR/
I have tried HDR in Photoshop CS3 and was not impressed. Not sure if they improved HDR in Photoshop CS4, but Photomatix is simple and does not cost much.

 

 

If you haven't heard of strobist, you are in for a treat. Strobist.com was started as a blog by David Hobby. David explains light and off camera flash in a way that can be absorbed very quickly. I have learned a lot from the website and have applied many of his lighting techniques to my photography.

Incorporating these off camera flash techniques has opened up a whole new world for me. Learning about light is what photography is all about.