Posts Tagged ‘animals’
Friday, July 1st, 2011
An American Porcupine, Erethizon dorsatum, in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click the image above to view a larger version of this photo.
Hey Folks,
It’s always a treat to photograph a species I’ve never photographed before (or at least made any “keepers” of). Our recent trip up near the Nizina Glacier, in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve seemed to be porcupine central. I think I saw 3 in the first 6 hours of the trip. That’s pretty cool, considering I often go the entire summer season without seeing any porcupines at all.
This one wasn’t too concerned about my camera clicking away, and I managed to snag a few images where he wasn’t buried in the thicker brush (Soapberry – Sherpherdia canadensis) and forest they typically might be found.
I’m guessing the young cottonwood saplings were his dinner. I saw a number porcupines out in the gravel bars of the riverbed, where the main vegetation was pretty much what you see here; the cottonwood saplings, Yellow Dryas (Dryas Drummondii) and the Wild Sweet Pea (Hedysarum Mackenzii). (more…)
Tags: American Porcupine, animals, Erethizon dorsatum, Skolai Images, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park
Posted in Alaska, Small Mammals, Wildlife, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 2 Comments »
Saturday, April 9th, 2011
Fannin sheep ewe, lying down in the mountains, Yukon Territories; Fannin Sheep are either a color morph of Dall Sheep, or a subspecies of Dall and Bighorn Sheep, Yukon Territory, Canada. No one really knows. Their scientific name suggests they're a kind of subspecies of Dall Sheep; Ovis dalli fannini. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.
hey Folks
All things Come Together;
1) I’ve been updating my website, keywording and updating some of the information in the wildlife photos gallery. Keywording means latin words, for some weird reason. The latest in technology presents information over the internet in a language so old no one even speaks it any more – ‘cept for a bunch of ole poindexter scientists. 
2) We all know, full well, April 10 marks the date the Beatles officially broke up. Bummer.
3) April 15th approaches. We all know what that means. Yikes! Way total bummer.
4) Next month, May, marks the birthday of my namesake, Carl Linnaeus.
So, let’s bring those things together; this is a tribute to George Harrison and Carl Linnaeus. See if you can finish this; gimme your best verse. (more…)
Tags: animals, Fannin Sheep, Skolai Images
Posted in Canada, Musings, Photography, Wildlife, Yukon Territory | No Comments »
Sunday, December 5th, 2010
Hey Folks,
December 6, 2010, marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, in Alaska. To commemorate this, and as a tribute to an amazing place, I’ve put together this slide show; 50 photos to mark the 50 years. These are all images from the Refuge, over 19 million acres of wild lands. The refuge is a treasure, home to thousands of creatures and features; the caribou herds, the Brooks Mountains, the broad coastal plain, migratory birds and countless other gifts to this world. A beautiful landscape that warrants our respect, not our exploitation.
I selected the images to present a the diversity of features and creatures that call the Refuge home, and composed and recorded the music to accompany it. I hope you enjoy it. (more…)
Tags: Alaska, animals, ANWR, Arctic, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Landscapes, music, scenics, Wildlife
Posted in Adventures, Alaska, ANWR, Art, Cool stories, Environmental Issues, Landscapes, News, Rafting | 4 Comments »
Sunday, November 15th, 2009
Beaver, (Castor canadensis), hauling willow back to his lodge for the winter, Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
You undoubtedly heard the news; today’s bling is Social Networking. You need to be on Facebook and you need to Tweet (loud and often). You need people to Digg your Flickrworld, you need to be Linked In, Hooked Up and Decked Out. You need to do this because you can’t afford not to, because everyone else is doing it, and because if you want to get ahead in life, to succeed, you need to do what everyone else is doing. Right?
It’s true, so I jumped right in. In the last few months I’ve opened the pages of Facebook and Tweeted my first Tweet, and just this week started a Flickr photo account. Additionally, my guiding business, Alaskan Alpine Treks, is now Linked In. Social networking, I’ve been instructed, is the key to my future success and now, after wrapping up a summer of hiking and backpacking in the mountains, I’m giving it a shot.
It’s an interesting and somewhat challenging process. You don’t need me to write about the ways in which successful folks engage this ‘social networking’, as this has been covered elsewhere far more effectively than I might manage. The topic here is the pervasive, engulfing nature of such sites as Twitter and Facebook, etc. According to their stats page Facebook has more than 300 million active users (irony of the term ‘users’ duly noted). (more…)
Tags: animals, beaver, corporations, corporatization, facebook, flickr, mammals, social networking, transnational, twitter, Walmart, Wildlife
Posted in Musings, News, Photo business, Photography, Rants, Small Mammals, Tech Stuff, Wildlife, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 14 Comments »
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Hey Folks,
As I said in a recent post, on my recent trip to Katmai National Park and Preserve I really hoped to make some images that featured not only the great grizzly bears, but also the awesome fall colors of the boreal forest . The Black Cottonwoods of the area provide the perfect background for photographing grizzly bears, but rarely do photographers seem to combine the 2. Most folks come up to Alaska and shoot the bears in the summer, and I think they’re missing out. The classic shot of a grizzly bear fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls is nice, and only generally possible mid-summer, of course, but there are a lot of other opportunities around in the fall that can be equally exciting. Great fall colors make stunning backdrops, and can really bring a vibrancy to the image. Stepping back, zooming out, and letting the scene dictate the photos is often the key.
In this photo I enjoy the sense of relationship between subject and environment – the dichotomy is largely only a function of our thought processing. The idea that the “environment” is something other than everything is a little peculiar; the subject IS the environment, as equally as the environment is the subject. There is really no difference between the bear and his habitat. (more…)
Tags: Alaska, animals, bears, Brooks River, Brown bears, fishing, Grizzly Bears, Katmai, Katmai National Park, Katmai National Park and Preserve, mammals, predators, Ursus arctos, Wildlife
Posted in Adventures, Alaska, Fall, Forests, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Photo Tours, Travel, Wildlife | 6 Comments »
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Hey Folks,
One of the photos I wanted this year was some slower shutter speed blurs of grizzly bears chasing spawning Sockeye Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) up the river. This kind of image is difficult to do with grizzly bears; well, not difficult to do, but difficult to manage a photo that works. More so, I think, than with most other animals. The result of this is that it seems to take about 5 times as many attempts to get a decent ‘panblur’ of a grizzly bear than it might, for example, of a caribou or wolf. What I’m calling a ‘panblur’, for those of you who aren’t certain, is a technique of slowing down the shutter speed when shooting movement, so that the subject becomes blurred, rather than crisp and sharp. You can see in the image above the spashing water and the legs of the bear are not to sharp at all. By panning the camera along with the bear as it races through the water, (more…)
Tags: Alaska, animals, bears, Brooks River, fishing, Grizzly Bears, Katmai, Katmai National Park, Katmai National Park and Preserve, mammals, Ursus arctos, Wildlife
Posted in Abstract Photos, Alaska, Art, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Musings, Photography, Tech Stuff, Wildlife | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
Photo above extracted via Nikon Capture NX2.2.2 (more…)
Tags: Adobe Photoshop CS4, Alaska, animals, Apple, bears, Brown bears, CS4, customer service, customer support, Grizzly Bears, Katmai, Katmai National Park, mammals, Nikon, Nikon Capture NX2, NX2, Photography, photoshop, software, Ursus arctos, Wildlife
Posted in Alaska, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Miscellaneous, Musings, News, Photo business, Photography, Rants, Reviews, Tech Stuff, Wildlife | 19 Comments »
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
Hey Folks,
Even though they might only be little, grizzly bear cubs are pretty bold – bold enough to climb on a stick and poke their tongue out at my camera. They know full well, of course, that their mother outweighs me by several hundred pounds, is a coupla yards quicker than my aged legs can carry me , is quite a bit stronger, has bigger, pointier teeth, sharper, longer claws, and is a little more willing to get in a tussle than I am. Hence, they’re pretty bold.
These cubs were actually not doing so well – only days earlier there had been 3 of them. (more…)
Tags: Alaska, animals, babies, bears, Brown bears, cubs, Grizzly Bears, Katmai, Katmai National Park, mammals, Ursus arctos, Wildlife
Posted in Alaska, Cool stories, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Wildlife | 3 Comments »
Friday, October 16th, 2009
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” – Thich Nhat Hahn.
Hey Folks,
Well, with all the comments about landscapes versus bear photos on the last few pages, I thought I’d try a compromise. I know, I know, compromises end up pleasing no one, right? Well, so be it.
This is possibly the last photo I took on my trip last month, a sunset over Naknek Lake – I was hoping for some nice clear skies the following morning – and actually had a big sunrise – but then it clouded over, very soon afterward, and no good light was had for the morning shooting. Then I had to pack and get ready for the plane to come pick me up. The trip was all over too soon.
The photo is one exposure, so no real photoshop trickery – I even left the gull in the bay (@ Ron ).
The real reason I wanted to post this photo was, honestly, a talk I went to listen to tonight, at a local bookstore, by a great Alaskan writer, Bill Sherwonit. (more…)
Tags: Alaska, animals, bears, Brown bears, Grizzly Bears, Katmai, Katmai National Park, Landscapes, mammals, Mt. La Gorce, Naknek Lake, scenics, sunset, Ursus arctos, Wildlife
Posted in Alaska, Environmental Issues, Fall, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Landscapes, Musings, People, Wildlife | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Click on the image above for a larger, more detailed version.
Hey Folks,
While I’m going through my recent images, I processed this one and thought I’d post it for kicks. It’s a simple computer trick, which even a cursory look unveils. All I did here was copy the image, flip it horizontally, and paste it alongside the original. I got a split second to shoot this scene, as the bears didn’t hold the position very long – another bear came by and the cub backed away from his nonchalant mum. I was thinking about the composite when I took the frame, remembering the shot I made a number of years back (image #5 on this page).
I don’t do a lot of this kind of photoshop trickery, but sometimes it’s fun. I’m interested to hear if folks like this image or not.
Thanks.
Cheers
Carl
Tags: Alaska, animals, bears, Brown bears, composite, cubs, digital composites, family, grizzlies, Grizzly Bears, Katmai, Katmai National Park, mammals, panoramics, Ursus arctos, Wildlife
Posted in Alaska, Fall, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Photography, Wildlife | 8 Comments »
