Alaska Photography

I was scheduled to fly out in a helicopter Friday morning, but weather kept us grounded. As I was heading north in my daily commute between Anchorage and Wasilla, I was blown away by the light on the mountains from the sunrise. I stopped a couple times to snap a shot. I have always known my commute has to be one of the most beautiful in the world and wanted to share it. These are the mountains I see every day.
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This is a 3 exposure HDR taken in Homer, Alaska last year. I decided to try and do a B&W conversion on it. I like the way it came out, could use more contrast in the mountain’s trees.
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I love waterfalls! I love the challenge of getting that smooth silky look of flowing water. When the weather is bad, I look for a waterfall. This is Salmon Creek Falls just outside of Juneau, Alaska. If you can make it outside of the tourist season, you might be the only one there. I have shot these falls several times and never ran across a single person.

I decided to play with Photomatix settings on this one and like the way it turned out.

Salmon Creek Falls, Juneau, Alaska

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Pioneer Peak near Wasilla, Alaska is very difficult to photograph in the winter. The sun rises from behind the mountain leaving everything else in shadow. I have been experimenting with HDR and Photomatix to see if I can blend this range of highlights and shadows.

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Pioneer Peak HDR

I have a hard time processing HDR with snow in it. The snow tends towards the dark side looking dirty.  If someone knows of a good resource with examples of HDR and snow I would appreciate hearing about it.

I have been taking 3 exposures for years in anticipation of doing something with them someday. These 3 exposures were taken years ago on a trip to Valdez. To identify possible HDR candidates in Lightroom I rate the first photo of a series with 2 stars. Nothing else gets 2 stars in my catalog. If I want to look for photos to import into Photomatix for HDR work I search my database for 2 stars. Doing that today, I came across these 3 photos and exported them to Photomatix from Lightroom.





Normal exposure











1 stop under











1 stop over








You may ask why I only used 1 stop instead of 2 stop exposures. Simple answer, I had no idea what I was doing. Now when I take a landscape shot I take 3 exposures, 2 stops over and 2 stops under. I can then export to Photomatix to try some tonemapping. Not all images are for HDR, but I am finding more and more.

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This one I tonemapped in Photomatix using my high settings which are here.

I then tonemapped in Photomatix with my medium settings here.

This one is tonemapped using my light settings found here.

I liked the medium settings for this image so I pulled it into Photoshop, cloned the signs out, used a neutral density filter and ran noise reduction on it. Click on the image for a larger view. I wish more people would publish their Photomatix settings.

Here is another HDR tutorial with settings for that realistic look. http://www.akphotograph.com/Alaska%20Blog/?p=808

I put together my top 10 picks from this year. It was very tough but Lightroom made it much easier. I used the Quick Selection function to narrow down my picks. My first round of picks had over 10 eagle shots alone. The final outcome does not even have a Denali shot. There were two Denali shots in the top 12, but were cut in the end.

Bald Eagles

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Homer, Alaska

Here are my top 20 eagle shots.

Here are my all-time favorites.

Using backlight can be challenging, but when used correctly it can add depth to your photos.

The sun adds some backlight and depth to this musher

You can also use the sun for the classic silhouette

Used a flash behind and above my nephew and girlfriend to separate them from the background

Backlighting is a very effective way to separate your subject from the background. Your camera will try to underexpose though so you have to play with your metering. Try spot metering and exposure compensation the next time you have a difficult shot.

Took photos of dog mushing during 2 days of competition. The lighting conditions on the trail were very poor. On the second day, I decided to bring my flash equipment. I have a Canon 580 EXii, and 2 Canon 430 EXii. I trigger these with a Canon STE2 on my hotshoe. I let ETTL figure out my flash exposure.

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First Day Lighting (no flash)

Second day, 580ex ii camera right, 430 exii camera left

My setup

Next time I will bring some light modifiers to throw more light. I just recently moved up to the Canon ETTL system from a completely manual off camera flash system. I am really liking it and hope to do more soon.

My sister-in-law competed in the 4 dog mushing category at Montana Creek last weekend. They also had some 2 dog and 1 dog skijoring races. I wish my Siberian Husky would pull like these dogs.

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Montana Creek Mushing
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Montana Creek Mushing
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My sister-in-law’s team
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Montana Creek Mushing
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Montana Creek Mushing
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Montana Creek Mushing
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Montana Creek Mushing

Sun rise behind Pioneer Peak. 3 exposure HDR. Been getting a lot of snow around here! Love it.

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Pioneer Peak