Mother's Day at the Alaska Native Heritage Center

 I was hired by First Alaskans Magazine to take some images at the Alaska Native Heritage Center's free open house on Mother's day. I love the center. It's a great place to see native arts and crafts and to see a wide variety of live performances. Chanting, drumming, dancing, traditional games, you name it!

 It's a wonderful place to become immersed in the First Alaskans world.

 They also had the reenactment sites open with traditionally dressed "actors" explaining how various tribes lived in the past.

 This is a sampling of images. I'm looking forward to getting back out there when summer has really set in and the trees are full and the grasses tall.

Turnagain Arm and the end of winter, I hope!

  I was driving along Turnagain Arm last week on my way to Girdwood. I LOVE this 45 minute drive and will find any excuse to do it. ( "I could sure use a cup of coffee- Hey! I hear Girdwood has coffee! Let's go!) Accent Alaska, my stock agency, is located there so instead of taking 15 minutes and dropping a disc in the mail I drive it down! Of course I always bring my camera.
  It was a grey, windy day, with not much exciting going on as far as light but I was attracted to the textures in the mud. I actually passed this spot up but then decided I needed to see if I could get something there. To get down to the mud I had to cross the Seward Highway, go down a small hill, cross the railroad tracks, and scramble over some boulders. That was no big deal. The wind was. Not only was it much stronger down here by the water, it was much colder. I, being such a smart and experienced Alaskan photographer, failed to put on the coat and light gloves I had sitting next to me in the car. Eventually it was very uncomfortable holding the frozen camera body in my bare hands so I'd take a few images, warm up my hands, take some more until I couldn't take it!
  Because it was so windy I took a lot of images of each composition to make sure I ended up with a sharp one. I'm glad I did because I really ended up with several blurred photos even with settings of 1/125 sec. at F13 and ISO 400.
  I love the texture of the mud. It was a no-brainer to convert the muted hues in this scene to black and white.
  The stacks of lumber, dropped of by the railroad for future repair work to the tracks, added an interesting contrast to the more natural elements and I couldn't help but experiment with them.
  As you can see there is no snow on the ground and it is rapidly melting off of the mountains. Summer is on the way!

Welcome!

        

Welcome!

  This is the first posting of a new blog for Wayde Carroll Photography. I look forward to sharing my images, techniques, thoughts, and inspirations here. Any comments, critiques, questions, or wise cracks are welcome!

 I'm a photographer based in Anchorage, Alaska and I do a wide variety of work to keep paying the bills! From one posting to the next you may find photos from an exotic location or you may find a pair of bare feet photographed for a local hospital brochure. I'll try and limit the foot postings, promise!

  I want to extend a special welcome and thank you to the people who followed me on my Chatalaska blog for so long. I was sad to see it shut down but feel I can share a wider range of topics here.

 This first image of the Chugach Mountains was taken just down the street from my home. I was locking up the house before hitting the sack and looked out the window to find this amazing orange glow filling the sky! I quickly grabbed my Canon 5D and a 24-70mm lens, made sure there was a card and a battery in the camera (I have actually driven out to a spot in the past to catch some amazing light only to discover my battery was still at home charging, just in case, you know, I might need to leave at a moments notice...), and ran down the street to a local park with a nice clearing.

 I was in aperture priority at  F6.3 and had a shutter speed of 1/125 at ISO 400. Because the lens was zoomed out to 24mm I wasn't too worried about depth of field and the 1/125th shutter speed allowed me to hand hold the camera and not worry about a tripod. I knew the color wouldn't last long and after shooting about 15 images the sun was gone and the clouds were grey/ blue. Made it!

 I would have liked a bit more of the mountain range in the image but I was eliminating some distracting homes that were directly in front of me. Not bad for a mere ten minutes work!