Hey Folks,

It’s that time of year once again. Thanks so much for stopping by to read the blog here and view the photos, I appreciate it.

Here are my pick of images (34) for 2011. I hope you enjoy them.

You’ll find a great list of photographers’ photos of the year on Jim Goldstein’s blog. Check it out.

Thanks

Cheers

Carl

Mount Saint Elias, 18 008' high, stands tall in the evening light over an unnamed glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska - aerial photo. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Well, just back from 2 weeks to photographing brown bears in Katmai National Park, and I’m off again already; I’ll be gone for some time on this trip, 4 weeks down along the coastline of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, where I will meet up with Erin and Hig, of Ground Truth Trekking. They’re spending 2 months in the area,  finding out

“what would it be like to live on ice? In the fall of 2011 we will set out to spend two months living on the shifting, melting surface of North America’s largest glacier, along with our two young children.

Trekking between a series of camps on the Malaspina Glacier, on Alaska’s remote and harsh Lost Coast, we will explore this dramatic and wild landscape, weather the fall storms, and document climate change in action.”

Pretty cool stuff. You can read more about the expedition on their blog, here. They’ve already been out a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to meeting up, and hearing all about their adventures. From the tweets I’ve seen, they’re having a blast. I spoke with Hig today, and he’s excited about the trip as it’s going so far. So my plan is to join their trip, for a while, and photograph as much as I can of it. As well as explore the magnificent Wrangell – St. Elias National Park coastline, a place I’ve not spent as much time as I’d like to. So, for 4 weeks, I’ll be trudging around, hiking, pack rafting and experiencing the Malaspina Glacier and the “Lost Coast”. I also hope, of course, to get some big views of those mountains, the incredible Saint Elias Range, the world’s highest coastal range, and home of Mount Saint Elias, pictured above.

The trip should be a blast, anytime I can spend 4 solid weeks in the backcountry I’m a happy fella; to do so in such a unique area as this coastline will be truly memorable, I’m sure. Lots to photograph, and lots to learn about in such a relatively rarely visited area. It’ll be awesome to hang with Hig and Erin some more, and learn from their knowledge and experience. Hig has a PhD in geology and Erin a masters in molecular biology, so I’m sure I’ll learn an amazing amount from both of them.

I’ll schedule a few posts for while I’m away, so please do check in from time time. I should be back in on Nov 7, and have plenty to talk about when I arrive. That’s the plan, anyway. But we all know what they say about plans and mice and men.

Cheers

Carl

Wrangell mountains, fall colors, sedimentation rock layers ad striations, aerial photo, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

An abstract aerial shot of the Wrangell Mountains, with a little fall color thrown in. Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

I’d actually asked the pilot to fly us up in this area in the hope to find a particular glacial scene I wanted to reshoot, but the great patterns and colors along the ridges above the glacier were more interesting; in part because we didn’t find what I was looking for anyway.

Aerial photography is an exciting challenge; trying to see compositions that work in camera from such an unusual perspective is harder than one might imagine. The sensory overload of flying through such magnificent scenery, and the sheer novelty of perspective makes it easy to simply shoot everything, and come back with a bunch of images that don’t really work.

For myself, I find shooting tighter and really concentrating on shapes works best. I’m curious to hear what readers think and feel about this image; I’d love to hear your comments.

Thanks so much

Cheers

Carl

Erie Mine Bunkhouse and the Wrangell Mountains, fall colors. Erie Mine is one of three mines that made up the famous Kennecott Copper Mines, Kennicott, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

From the aerial shoot we did in September; this one is of the old bunkhouse at Erie Mine, one of the 3 Kennecott Mines, in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park.

It’s interesting to me how much money, time and investment the National Park Service put into Kennecott, an old abandoned Copper Mine. The basic tenant of the Park Service is “don’t take stuff out of the place, and don’t leave your trash behind”.

It seems odd to effectively celebrate an organization that did quite the opposite of that. The mining company, like most mining companies, took what they wanted from the landscape, and left all their sh** behind when they were done. Now, what they did is revered.

But, such are the ways of the NPS; sometimes they’re hard to follow.

Cheers

Carl

Fall colors in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Aerial photo. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a quick shot from a flight we took over the park last week; the weather wasn’t so awesome, but the flight sure was. I’d shot this valley before, and knew it would have some nice color.

Now, back to packing gear for the grizzly bear photo tour.

Cheers

Carl

Glacial Stream and ogives, Root Glacier, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

From my most recent trip to Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and beyond. This is an aerial photo from above the Root Glacier, near Kennecott and McCarthy, Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The small stream is made up largely of runoff water from Stairway Icefall, a massive 7000′ vertical wall of ice that effectively form the “headwaters” of the Root Glacier.

This is an image I’ve wanted to capture for sometime now; I’ve seen various similar images of this same stream from a few photographers, including my friend Ron Niebrugge, and often thought it would be a cool subject to shoot. Indeed it is. 

The banding and ridge formations in the ice are a feature called “ogives”, created by icefalls, such as Stairway Icefall. The ice “bends” because the speed at which a glacier might advance is higher near the middle of the glacier rather than the outlying edges.

Shooting these kinds of images requires a fast shutter speed, and little depth of field; the lens will generally be focused at infinity, so a wide open aperture (or close to it) is best; shutter speed is the priority. Newer digital cameras also allow higher quality images at higher ISO’s than earlier models, and my new D700 was a great plus for this flight. I shot this at ISO 1000, and there is no discernible digital noise at all. That’s a nice feature to have.

I’ll write another post later with more info on shooting aerial photography; it’s a blast.

Cheers

Carl

Mount Saint Elias, 18 008' high, catches the last of the sun's rays for the day, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska - aerial photo. The rocky islands, or outcroppings, in the foreground are called Nunataks. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks

Mount Saint Elias is possibly one of the great unsung heroes of American mountains, possibly all the world. Towering 18 008′ tall, the mountain rises right from sea level to its lofty summit. The Saint Elias coastal range are the world’s tallest coastal mountains, and Mount Saint Elias is their crown jewel. It’s also the crown jewel of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, the nation’s largest national park, and finest preserve of wildness and wilderness.

From the north, Mount Saint Elias is bordered by the Bagley Icefield, largest non polar icefield in North America at nearly 130 miles long. There is simply no end to the superlatives for this massif.

This photo is from the end of an amazing flight-seeing trip to the Saint Elias range. Absolutely jaw-dropping stuff. We didn’t arrive back to the landing strip until dark; super was late this night. But the chance to be in the presence of such magnificence is a treat to be savored as long as possible. I was pretty glad to have had the opportunity.

Mount Saint Elias is the 2nd tallest mountain in the nation, the 2nd tallest mountain in Canada (it sits right on the border). I’d be surprised if more than the smallest fraction of visitors to the region ever even see the mountain, however, simply because so few people make the trip. It’s not a roadside venture at all. But oh wow, oh so worth it.

More photos of Mount Saint Elias and the Saint Elias coastal Range region of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

Cheers

Carl

Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Wrangell Mountains and the Kuskulana River, Kuskulana Glacier, near Nugget Creek mine. Winter, Alaska. This photo is a closer look at the ice wall on the Kuskulana Glacier, from the photo I posted last week. I probably spent about an hour or 2 here, checking out this fascinating place. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

My friend Guy Tal posted (as usual) another great read on his blog; “Photography and the Environment”. I urge you to read his treatise; it’s a solid piece. Guy has a great knack for writing on particular topics without seeming to offend those who disagree with him, which makes his a powerful voice. At the same time, he’s not wishy-washy. that’s a hard line to toe.

One question Guy asks in the article is “Will another photograph on a web site in a stock library truly change public opinion? How about another thousand? Another million?”

I’d suggest, however, that this is the wrong question to consider.Turn it around; what if there were to be no more nature photographs? What if nobody photographed another sunset, another bald eagle, glacier, forest grove or great bear? What if no writer touched pen to paper to draft the next essay on climate change, the next article about mountain top blasting, or open pit mining, or overgrazing? What if poets stayed their ink, and said no more? What if musicians ceased their social commentary, singers fell silent? Cinematographers made no more nature films?

How might THAT change public opinion? I’ll submit here that art DOES foster culture. The voices of writers, photographers, musicians, painters, dancers, film makers, etc, are worthwhile. The art we create moves people. Expression, both collective and individual, reinforces and shapes who we are, what we value, how we feel, how we think, move, talk, how we treat ourselves, each other; in essence, how we live.

What if the voice for concern were left only to those who have none? What kind of culture would arise from a world where the only representatives of the natural world were those interested in nothing more than extraction and coin? This is precisely the kind of world that made the John Muirs, the Henry Jacksons, etc, so desperately critical. Rivers caught on fire and the greatest herds of wildlife the planet has ever seen are no more. Even given the great work of those luminaries, we still produce undrinkable water and unbreathable air; the skies rain acid, the ice melts and the  polar bear vanishes. It’s frightening to contemplate where we might be today if these giants of conservation, artists all, stepped away from the fray because they wondered if their work might make no difference.

No thanks; give me a world where “champions of the natural world” isn’t a phrase pertaining to competition and conquest, but a tribute to the voice of love and compassion.

Consider the work of great artists as part of a greater coterie; the voice of Bob Dylan, of Rachel Carson, Henry David Thoreau, Ansel Adams, Henry Jackson, Art Wolf, Wendell Berry do not arise from a vacuum. Those voices are certainly some of the loudest and most poignant; fine soloists indeed. But even Aretha Franklin sings with a choir. These legendary artists arise from a bed of creativity, a giant web, that includes, many, many other artists. It is this bed that generates great art and great artists, and it is this bed that might precipitate social change. The universe didn’t give us one Jimi Hendrix. The universe gives us hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of kids growing up playing guitar, making music, making art; and Jimi’s incredible performances are part of that, an outgrowth of that web.

Furthermore, artists don’t create single works. Artists make art, and maybe, sometimes, if we’re lucky, just one of those creations might generate public comment. Photographers shoot literally hundreds, thousands of images, in the vain, oft-concealed hope of possibly making one really great image. Cartier Bresson said “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” So if your photo isn’t enough to truly nurture a change in public opinion, shoot another. And another. And yet another.

The last point I might make here is a more personal one. My photography might not, probably will not, ever, “truly change public opinion”. But my photographic pursuits have changed my opinion; the ways I see the world, the things I care about, the respect I feel for the world around me, have all grown in leaps and bounds through artistic engagement, and continue to do so. That alone makes the quest meaningful.

Cheers

Carl

Fluting and deep power on the St. Elias mountains. Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Click on the image for a larger version.

Hey Folks,

As promised, more photos from the St. Elias mountains. An aerial I shot on one of the most gorgeous days I’ve ever been out shooting. On the subject of the newly released film, Mount St. Elias:

Few people realize just how special these mountains are. Everyone knows Denali, of course, and the Himalayas, but the St. Elias mountains just don’t seem to have caught the public eye like these others. I suspect it’s because they’re full of  ”seconds”: 2nd highest mountain in the US (Mount. St. Elias, second highest mountain Canada (Mount St. Elias, also known as Boundary Peak 186, sits on the US/Canada border), 2nd highest mountain in North America (Mt. Logan in Canada is in the St. Elias range). We’re a culture of competition, and there really ain’t no second prize.

Part of what makes these mountains so commanding is their proximity to the coast. Mount St. Elias rises right from the beach, over 18 000′, from shore to summit, and is only 2000′ shy of it’s more well known brother in the Alaska Range, Denali (Mt. McKinley).  McKinley draws, for examples, climbers a year, on average. When Alex Naglich and Peter Ressman reached the summit of Mount St. Elias in 2007, while making their film, they were the first people on the summit in 4 years. The mountain has been climbed by only a handful of folks. Indeed, after it was first successfully ascended in 1897 by a party led by the Duke of Abruzzi, nearly 50 years passed before the next ascent.

Suits me fine though – it just means when I go visit, there’s hardly anyone around.

By the way, I have this image in black and white, as well. I  might post that one in the next couple of days.

Cheers

Carl

Looking down from a great height at some of the amazing escarpments in the St. Elias Mountain Range, Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Hey Folks,

Have you ever thought about climbing the 2nd highest mountain in the US, the 2nd highest mountain in Canada, the 3rd highest mountain in North America, the mountain with the greatest vertical relief of any mountain in the world so you can ski from top to bottom? From 18 008′ to the sea? If so, this movie’s for you. Mount St. Elias. 2 Austrian mountaineers and an American freeski mountaineer set out to run the “ultimate vertical descent” – 18 000 of skiing from the summit of Mount St. Elias to the sea, to Icy Bay. Pretty amazing stuff to watch, I can’t begin to imagine what that kind of endeavor must be like.

“If you want to achieve something great, you have to risk more than usual – that’s the way it is.” — (Axel Naglich)

Define “more than usual”???I suppose he means everything, life limb and expensive, shiny gear. Watching these people ski sheer verticals walls of ice, hop crevasses and race falling snow down a mountainside made me realize I really need to work on my turns. Watching American Jon Jonston get halfway down the beyond steep wall of the Haydon Col and lose a binding on his ski nearly lost me. I mean, I’ve done some silly stuff in my time, even risked “more than usual”, but these guys are from another planet. Planet insane, perhaps.

(speaking of the mountain) .. “well, if he wants to take you, he’ll take you.” – Axel Naglich.

True, true, true. Storms roll in on Mount St. Elias perhaps more quickly than anywhere else. The warmer air over the Pacific Ocean hits the shore, and within a few miles is pushed up over the St. Elias mountain range (the highest coastal mountain range in the world). Within 10 miles of the coast the air is squeezed up over Mount St. Elias’ 18 008′ summit; it’s no wonder this area is home to the largest non-polar icefield in the world, and the Malaspina Glacier (a glacier larger than Rhode Island). Snow dumps here are measured in the dozens of feet; the crew on this expedition literally dig for their lives to avoid being trapped in a snow storm that lasts 3 days, hurtling 90 mile per hour winds across the mountain.

The drama though, is not the near-death climber on a mountain story – it’s watching these folks ski what is unquestionably one of the great mountains of the world – Mount St. Elias. Absolutely breathtaking; and I don’t mean “breathtaking” like  a colorful  sunset might be – I mean “breathtaking” like your heart leaps so forcefully into your mouth breathing isn’t an option.

Superbly filmed, on the big screen the movie is a gem. It’s directed by Gerald Salmina and I highly recommend it. Check it out.

I’ll post a few more photos of the St. Elias Mountains this week.

Cheers

Carl