Mat-Su Fall!

Chickaloon River

    Fall and early winter have been unusually busy for me. It's been great business-wise but I've struggled to make the time to stay connected here! Luckily, that gives me a lot to catch up on.

    In mid-September I spent the day in the Matanuska-Susitna region in search of fall color. The peak colors in Alaska only last a couple of weeks but can be absolutely stunning! I ended up spending most of my time scrambling around Chickaloon River just a little further up the Glenn Highway from the town of the same name. I took a lot of long exposures, about one to four seconds, to get the silky look in the water. The sky was pretty dull with heavy clouds so I added a blue gradient to make the white spaces in the composition less distracting.

    Here are some favorites from the day:

Fiddle Creek Falls

I just returned from two weeks in California. Part of that time was spent camping at one of my favorite places on earth with some long time friends. I can't tell you how many wonderful times I've spent rinsing off under these refreshing falls after a long day of activities on the larger Yuba River near by. For over twenty years family and friends have met here. Though some are no longer with us, I always find their spirit here.
   I took this on my last morning of the trip before the sunlight filled the scene and added too much contrast to make a nice image.

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)