Alaska Photo 1 - The Midnight Sun

[GB1]

Taken July 14 just after midnight, at Deadhorse Camp, Alaska.

Deadhorse is next to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the largest oil well in North America and on the Arctic Ocean. This is a 5-image HDR but I'm also posting the middle range image for comparison, which may actually be better (?) I set up my camera to automatically fire 5 shots in -1 f stop increments every 30 minutes, then hit the hay. Since it was threatening rain, I took the chance that it wouldn't downpour and damage the camera and just placed my hat over the top of the camera (I wasn't worried about theft since it was in an obscure location). But sloppiness have it, the lip of the hat shows in the top of the pic, requiring some cropping.

It was really my intention to get the sun moving across the sky in a series of shots, so to show how the sun skirts the horizon. But due to heavy clouds, light rain, and some technical sloppiness on my part (was a little woozy from the trip, I suppose ), I wasn't able to do just that. I did get this and a few other shots though. C&Cs welcome.

G

[Coastal Flyer]

GB,

I was in Alaska for three weeks end of May, first week of June. Unbelievable place. Hope you had as wonderful an experience as me. Was the sunlight tough to get used to? I don't think I slept the entire time I was there.

CF

[GB1]

Hey CF - I went as a dumb tourist, don't know if you were there for work instead (flying maybe)? I did the land route thing - Fairbanks, Arctic Ocean, Denali, Talkeetna, Seward, and Anchorage with a bunch of touristy stuff in between - river cruise, rafting, sightseeing flight, etc.

It was an interesting time and I'm glad I did it, but I would probably do things a lot differently now. I think I'd rent a car and do a lot of it on the road - more freedom and flexibility to do hard-core photography the way I want it. I thought Alaskans were quite friendly. The place was colder in the summer than I expected, especially Denali. Expensive too.

I kept napping in the tour buses and trains, didn't know why until I realized that I wasn't sleeping very well at night with all the light.

How was your trip!? Did you post many shots? If so, I missed em

G

[Coastal Flyer]

Hi GB,

Naw, I went as a tourist also. I did the land route thing. I flew in and out of Anchorage, rented a car and headed off for three weeks. I went down the Kenai to Homer, Seward, crossed Prince William Sound from Whittier to Valdez, then Tok/Anchorage/Denali back to Anchorage. I did not post scenery pictures as I figured they were not the most interesting. Beautiful, but didn't want to post shots of snow covered mountains. I do have a blog however that has 30 someodd shots posted: www.myliferetired.blogspot.com
You are free to check that out if you wish. Glad you had a good time.

David

[GB1]

Hi GB,

Naw, I went as a tourist also. I did the land route thing. I flew in and out of Anchorage, rented a car and headed off for three weeks. I went down the Kenai to Homer, Seward, crossed Prince William Sound from Whittier to Valdez, then Tok/Anchorage/Denali back to Anchorage. I did not post scenery pictures as I figured they were not the most interesting. Beautiful, but didn't want to post shots of snow covered mountains. I do have a blog however that has 30 someodd shots posted: www.myliferetired.blogspot.com
You are free to check that out if you wish. Glad you had a good time.

David

That's sounds pretty much my trip, 'cept I went on a 2.5 day trip to the Arctic Ocean. I read a lot of your blog - very good writeup. I regret to inform you that your pix are much better than mine. I think doing one's own thing w/ their own wheels helps a photographer.

One thing I didn't like was the food poisoning I got in Talkeetna the last 4 days... I was one step away from a hospital

[EOSThree]

Didn't know you were up here flyer. I would have tried (and probably failed like I did with Greg) to have a beer with you. Nice blog on your experiences in Alaska. The roof in downtown Anchorage made for a great photo platform. I'll agree there isn't a whole lot to be seen in the interior of Alaska except for Denali. Even Fairbanks is just OK, nothing special. I am a wildland firefighter and remember that fire near Tanacross that you saw. I flew into Tanacross to bring supplies for the fire once.

Greg, where did you eat in Talkeetna? I usually eat at the West Rib when I'm there, they have great hamburgers. Sorry you got sick.

[GB1]

Didn't know you were up here flyer. I would have tried (and probably failed like I did with Greg) to have a beer with you. Nice blog on your experiences in Alaska. The roof in downtown Anchorage made for a great photo platform. I'll agree there isn't a whole lot to be seen in the interior of Alaska except for Denali. Even Fairbanks is just OK, nothing special. I am a wildland firefighter and remember that fire near Tanacross that you saw. I flew into Tanacross to bring supplies for the fire once.

Greg, where did you eat in Talkeetna? I usually eat at the West Rib when I'm there, they have great hamburgers. Sorry you got sick.

Jim - Ha, yeah we tried to get together but the timing just wasn't in the cards. Such is the life as a firefighter.

I'm pretty sure I ate something bad (chicken sandwich) in that Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge restaurant, though it could have been a piece of pizza I had downtown Talkeetna. Couldn't eat or hold anything down for 3+ days, and had to skip a Seward boat ride I had prepaid for. I've had food poisoning before but this was twice as bad... I read up a bit on the internet, there's a good chance it was salmonella. I told the staff when leaving in case someone else complained, but of course it's hard to conclusively say it was from them. Next time I travel I'm bringing some pills. Someone told me they sell medicine with the same good bacteria as yogurt.

Still going through my pix. Alaska was different than I expected, more barren in general. Seward was cloudy and cool the whole time. Anchorage was more cosmopolitan than I ever thought it would be.

G

[Anbesol]

Sorry GB but I'm not really digging that flare, personally, and it seems to dominate the image as the solitary subject. Course, lens flare is a pretty subjective thing, I'm sure plenty would like it. As such, hard to critique.

[Don Schaeffer]

Lovely photos. The first strikes me harder because of the way the light hits the cloud.

[GB1]

Thanks guys. Yeah, it's tough to eliminate flare. I think it heavily depends on your lens' multi-coating. I also know that you can create or reduce the 'starburst' effect of a bright light source, like the sun, by decreasing or increasing the aperture opening of the lens, respectively, but that may be a separate subject.

Anbesol, I'm in the final stages of examining and editing my ~ 1000 Alaskan photos. One thing I'm realizing is that most are more 'I was there' shots, not really very artistic or photographically excellent. I sort of view this one that way, one that you show someone and state THIS was taken at 2 a.m. at the ARCTIC OCEAN ! Otherwise, it's just a picture of the sun. If I had more time to scout the place out and look for a better foreground .. but you only get one shot sometimes. I think the key is doing it right the first time, something I am really thinking about a lot lately, what the process would be for that, etc. Research, visualization, tips from locals, ... and thinking on your feet, too.

Don, thanks also. They're actually the same but the top one's an HDR. I think the HDR almost always wins (!)

G