Samuel Johns

Yesterday I had the pleasure of photographing up and coming Anchorage musician Samuel Johns. Samuel, a member of the Ahtna native community (a subculture of Athabascan) was born and raised in Copper Center, AK. By the time he was 21 he had already spent most of his life battling alcoholism. Then he had a daughter and knew he had to quit. He's been sober seven years now and spends a good deal of his time giving music back to the community. He writes and performs his own rap songs but also has taken to learning traditional drumming and singing. He performs once a week for Bean's Caffe, a large shelter here in Anchorage, and is making quite a name for himself. I was asked by Cook Inlet Tribal Council to take some images of him for an upcoming feature in their Access 360 magazine. To help Samuel out we also decided to do a little extra work and let him have some of the images for his self promotion.  For these images, in his traditional regalia, we went up into the mountains. It was a stunningly clear evening. In the top photo you can see Denali in the background. It's remarkable to think that that mountain is 250 miles away and still towers over the horizon. The Chugach Mountains are the backdrop for the second image. We'll be doing some "studio" shots next week and I'll hope to have them up here soon after!

Quinhagak, Alaska

  In September I spent five days in the Yup'ik village of Quinhagak in southwest AK. As in the previous post (below), I was taking images for a "Beyond the Road" feature to be published in First Alaskans Magazine. I thought it would be fun to share the magazine layout as well as a selection of "final" images so you can see what I submitted and what the designer chose.

  Quinhagak is a special village for me because a good friend of mine, John O. Mark, was born and raised there and it's wonderful to be able to visit with him and his family. I owe him, and his wife Grace, a huge thank you for putting me up and feeding me the entire time!

 The opening double-page spread is above, following are the other eight pages of the final layout.

 As always, Annette at First Alaskans did a great job. I of course, wish every image made it in as a two page spread!

  Here is a good sampling of the images I submitted: (click image to view larger size)

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.