The North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA) is a membership organization dedicated to promoting nature photography “as a medium of communication, nature appreciation, and environmental protection.”  I’ve been a member of this organization for a decade, taking advantage of its membership by attending annual seminars, enjoying inexpensive equipment insurance, and receiving guidance on ethical field practices.

One of the things that NANPA promotes is an annual Nature Photography Day on June 15.  It began Nature Photography Day to “promote the enjoyment of nature photography, and to explain how images have been used to advance the cause of conservation and protect plants, wildlife, and landscapes locally and worldwide.”  Rather than calling upon people to go to great lengths to fly or drive great distances to some dramatic, iconic location, the idea behind Nature Photography Day is to go someplace close, some place within walking, hiking or biking distance and examine the wonders of nature in our own backyard.  Fresh air and less carbon footprint that way!

Since the snow finally went away just a few weeks ago, I have been enjoying getting out and exploring the trails near my new hillside home above Rabbit Creek. The other morning, when doing my usual hour-long circuit, I noticed that the wildflowers were in crazy bloom.  Arctic lupine, bluebells, Western columbine, Narcissus-flowered anemone, forget-me-not, dwarf dogwood; all were bursting from the grasses, alders, aspen, cow parsnip, and just about every aspect of hillside and trail.  Knowing that I would be going for a hike this morning along the same route, I decided to take my camera long for the first time and capture some of this fleeting beauty.  Of course, with all of the stopping and composing, the usual hour turned into two.  But what a way to start a day.

The day is still young.  If you have a trail, park, stream, lake, coast, woods, or anything not made entirely of concrete and steel nearby you, I encourage you to get out and explore it with your camera.  Don’t be in a rush, either; take your time.  You may be surprised as to the many wonders you can discover if you give nature a chance to reveal herself to you.

I’ve been submitting my photography to the Windland Smith Rice International Awards hosted by Nature’s Best Photography magazine for almost a decade.  I’ve had a mix of success, with several semi-final images and one photo selected as a category winner.  I have tried different ways of figuring out what images to submit, but I really have not settled on any particular method that is as successful as I would like.  So this year, I thought, “What have I got to lose?”  So, I selected 50 images to submit to my Facebook fans for a vote.  These are the 20 images that garnered the most votes, with the featured image at the top of this post gaining the most votes. There are some images that I wanted more than my fans, but, to stay true to the experiment, I am going with their will.

I also have mixed feelings about submitting some of these images as they are of iconic locations that have been done a few times.  Now, I like to think that what I have done with them – most notably the sunrise at Mesa Arch photos – have enough elements to make them stand out from other Mesa Arch photos.  But I am intrigued to see how the selection committee reacts; I often find that many of the images chosen for the exhibit are of iconic locations and that there could be more new locations selected.  So if one of the iconic locations is chosen, it will be a mixed bag: my suspicions about what they select will be proven, but I will also have been successful in having an image selected.

Alaskans tend to take advantage of their long days by getting out and hiking, biking, camping, hunting, and fishing.  We savor the opportunity to have six hours of sunlight to enjoy on a weekday even after the work day is done.  Farther north, the sun never even goes down.  But as winter comes, the light goes down sooner and the nights grow longer.  Temperatures drop, chills set in.  And while some types of activities go away, they are simply replaced by others that can be pursued in the winter.  Nordic skiing, snow shoeing, trapping and snow machining take over as popular outdoor activities.  And then, there is a small but growing (thanks to the prevalence of digital cameras) sliver of the population that pursues another activity: aurora borealis chasing. 

There is a lot that goes into planning and preparing for a night out in the cold and dark seeking the perfect aurora photograph.  Some people head out more prepared than others.  I lean toward the prepared in order to not only be successful but to enjoy the experience. 

Most people who are experienced and prepared drivers have a winter survival kit in their car.  I have one of those.  But I also have an extra set of gear in the back of my car to aid in my aurora hunting.  I have a bag that contains a MSR Whisper-Lite stove, a MSR bottle of white gas fuel, a Ziploc with snack bars, instant Starbucks coffee, hot chocolate, and plastic eating utinsels.  There is a bag of Sailor Boy Pilot Bread and a container of creamy peanut butter to go with it.  I also have a small cook kit and a kettle for boiling water, and a travel mug for drinking hot liquids.  This bag, along with a few camping chairs and a -20 F sleeping bag, stay in my car at all times. 

In my office, I keep a camera bag fully-loaded and ready to go for running out after the northern lights. It contains my Nikon D800 and three lenses: Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 AFS, Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 AFS and the Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 AFS VR.  I also stock an assortment of CF and SD cards, spare batters, lens cloths, Lee GND filters (in case there is a great aurora display over some artificial lighting, like the city or a cabin), battery charger, and AC inverter to plug into my car “cigarette lighter” outlet.  Sitting next to it is a one-gallon jug of water I take with so I will have something to boil to add to the coffee or hot chocolate packets. 

But that’s just the gear; there is more to being prepared for aurora photography – like knowing when the aurora is going to be on display.  There are several web tools that I consult in determining whether or not I will go out.  Top of the list of tools for me is Spaceweather.com, which provides real time information as welll as some forecasting information (you can also sign up for text alerts).  Two other real time sources are the NOAA POES Auroral Activity website and the SALMON Cam, which is a camera at the Poker FLats Research Range for the University of Alaska Fairbanks showing a still image that is refreshed every minute during nighttime.  I also follow the @AuroraMAX and @AuroraNotify Twitter feeds, which provide realtime updates. 

Then there are certain times of the year that are best for chasing the aurora; you can’t effectively go aurora chasing when it is not dark.  (You could go in the daylight if you are a sucker for quixotic pursuits.)  I know, it seems crazy to mention, but a lot of people ask me when the best time of year is to see the aurora, or they ask if it has to be cold in order for the aurora to come out.  So, my answer is, the best time is when it is dark and in Alaska, that more likely than not means cold.  Sure, it starts getting dark enough to see them in August, and you can still see them in April, but most of the time during those months in between, it is cold outside.  Also, the aurora is most active around the fall and spring equinoxes – no one knows why, that’s just the way it is. 

Before heading out, you need to make sure you are dressed for the long haul.  From head to toe, you will not see me wearing cotton.  It has to be either synthetic or wool, for the simple reason that cotton, when wet, takes longer to dry and does not retain heat as well.  For my head, I take a seal/beaver/otter handcrafted by an Inupiat Eskimo, a thin hood layer, and a mask.  I wear two layers under my jacket, and a pair of thermals under a pair of snow pants.  For my hands, I prefer a thin liner glove underneath a set of fingerless gloves with a mitten flap.  On my feet, a pair of wool socks and a set of Baffin polar industrial boots.  Sometimes I wear moose hide Steger Mukluks, depending on how cold it is or how much snow depth there is. 

Then, you need to decide where you are going to go for the evening.  I have scouted several locations within an hour to hour-and-a-half from Anchorage that have proven to be good locations – open sky, good foreground, and minimal city lights.  But whether the location will be good that evening depends on cloud cover.  Again, I look to the web for that information, consulting the most recent thermal satellite images on the NOAA Alaska Region website. 

 Now that you are suited up, geared up, have checked the latest data on what the geomagnetic activity is and know a good location with clear skies, it’s time to head out.  And wait.  And be patient.  And wait some more.  On a good activity night, you will not have to wait long, as the aurora can hit as early as 9:00 p.m., or earlier.  And if it is good and looks like it is going to remain busy all night, don’t stay in one location; move on to somewhere else to capture other images.  I like to diversify my shooting locations so that all of my aurora borealis photos do not all look the same.  Diversity is one way to make your aurora images stand out compared to others.  And just like any other landscape photography situation, it is key to vary compositions, lens focal lengths, and orientation (horizontal or vertical).  If you feel like you have captured “the shot” for the night, keep shooting and try new techniques and compositions.  When I can, I like to set up and capture images for creating a time lapse movie.  It’s best, though, to take along a second tripod and camera (or even a “rail” system) to capture the time lapse so you don’t have to worry about missing a good still capture. 

While you are out there for many hours, there are several challenges you face throughout the course of the night.  The primary of those challenges is the care of your camera gear.  In colder temperatures, frost build-up on the camera and lens is a constant issue of concern, regardless of your proximity to an open water source.  Power drain on the batteries is a concern.  Being able to see your viewfinder and LCD display are also an issue, as you typically tend to exhale while composing images, and that breath creates frost on the backside of the camea. There are a lot of ways to deal with these challenges.  I deal with power issues by keeping spare batteries warm in a pocket.  For frost build up, I will either cover the camera or lens element, or take the camera back inside the car, but inside a sealed camera bag in order to slow the temperature transition and prevent fogging.  As for breathing on the back of your camera, well, sometimes I just hold my breath, or consciously make an effort to breathe off to the side. 

A short night is typically about three hours.  On a recent Ocotber night with a particularly spectacular display, I was out for eight hours, and could have stayed out more.  I felt, though, that by 4:30 a.m. I had captured a lot of really good images and could go to bed satisfied.  But even having great aurora borealis images to show for a night out in the cold cannot truly capture the thrill of just being out there and witnessing this amazing phenomenon. 

For technical aspects of aurora photography, visit my instructional blog post on the subject.  Visit the Aurora Borealis gallery on my website to view and purchase some of my aurora images.

On those clear starry nights when I am out searching for the aurora borealis, but no lights come out to play, I like to make sure that the effort of being out late and freezing my tuchus off is still worthwhile.  One way to do this is to highlight the magic of those starry skies through a star trails capture.

Up until about 2009, the only way I had ever considered capturing star trails was with a single, multi-hour exposure.  The technical aspects of capturing such a photo are fairly simple.  Set the ISO of your digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera to 100, white balance to auto, exposure to manual on the “bulb” setting, and the f-stop to f/2.8.  Turn off the auto focus on your camera and set the manual focus to Infinity.  Do not turn your focus ring all the way over to the end where the Infinity symbol is, that is not a true Infinity.  It will take a couple of test shots, zooming in on the stars following each capture, to determine where the true Infinity focus point is.  Finally, you will need a shutter cable release that allows you to lock the shutter open.  Once you have everything set up and have isolated the composition you desire, push the button on that shutter cable release and lock it in that position.  Then, go find something to do for a couple of hours.  With DSLR cameras, you will likely not want to set an exposure for longer than three hours or so, as the noise build-up in the image after such a long exposure will not be fixable.  This is one advantage film still has over digital – you can create a four-hour star trail photo with no image quality degradation.

The other critical element for capturing a single-image star trails exposure is the phase of the moon.  Anything brighter than a quarter moon will overexpose the landscape when exposed for two or more hours.  You cannot compensate by adjusting your f-stop to something higher, like f/8.0 or f/11, as that will take away the much needed exposure of the stars.  But, that is not to say that it is impossible to create a star trails image under a bright moon.  I have created star trails images on full or nearly-full moon nights before.

The key is to capture several images and then merge them into one using Photoshop.  You will need to have a camera with a built-in Intervalometer, like those available in Nikon cameras starting with the Nikon D300, or you will need to purchase one to attach to your camera.  The Intervalometer is what allows you to set your camera to take pictures at regular intervals, the key technical requirement of creating a star trails image using several images.

On a recent nearly-full moonlit night, I captured 1,000 images over a one-and-a-half hour period.  I set my exposure manually to 4 seconds and ISO to 1600 (applying all of the other settings mentioned previously), and set my Intervalometer to take a photo every 5 seconds for 999 photo captures.  It is key to make sure that there is as little gap as possible in between exposures in order to minimize or eliminate gaps in star trails that may occur as a result of star movement in between exposures.

Once you have captured your 1,000 or so images, now you need to bring them all together.  In order to make the files manageable in size, I typically will not shoot these files in RAW mode (with my Nikon D800, each RAW file is 25 megs – things add up after a while).  Place all of your star files in a folder that will be easy to locate and isolate.  Next, search the Internet to find a usable action that you can download and incorporate into Photoshop.  (Photoshop does not have any built-in feature that can do what needs to be done; you cannot simply stack the images in layers and easily merge them into a single layer.)  One action I used recently is the Star Circle Academy Stacker. I found the instructions relatively easy to follow and the Action is free – a teaser to sign up for some of their nighttime photography courses.  I used a similar action three years ago when creating a star trail photo during a full moon in Badlands National Park while spending time there as the park’s Artist-in-Residence.  In that case, I had set my camera to take photos all night in order to create a time lapse.  This presents another advantage of setting up a star trails photo using this method – the images captured can also have other applications.

Finally, there is actually a star trails feature built into Photoshop CS5.  I prefer not to use this method because it really is cheating.  It also requires you to separately capture a blank star field, with no landscape, and whatever foreground landscape you want to have in the image.  To create the star trails using this method, open up your RAW star field file in Adobe Bridge, adjusting the Clarity to bring out the whites of the stars.  Once the file is open, select your Actions feature in Photoshop CS5, then click the fly out menu on the upper right portion of the Actions tab.  Toward the bottom you will see “Star Trails Rotation.”  Select that and then hit the Play button on the bottom of the Actions window to see the rotations created.  You can repeat this function several times in order to lengthen the star trails.  You will note, however, that the more you do it, the more fake the image becomes.  Once you have created this star trails image, you can place it in the background of your foreground landscape.  Again, I do not use this method because it is not only cheating, but does not produce as visually stunning of a result as a single exposure or a thousand-image star trail photo.

The nighttime is a wonderful time to be out in the winter, especially on a cold, clear night.  Just because the aurora has not come out as you hoped does not mean you have to go home empty-handed.

I sat home on the evening of November 6, enjoying dinner with my wonderful wife, Michelle, watching the returns come back about the results in our 2012 national election.  I would take a few bites, then pick up the iPad and skim Salon.com and NYT.com for the latest results, while also flipping over to the tab open to Spaceweather.com.  I was watching another set of numbers – the solar wind and the direction of the Bz in the magnetic field.  The winds weren’t as high as I would like – only 365 km/sec – but the Bz was 7.7 south; a good number.  I stayed long enough to see that President Barack Obama was re-elected to a second term – an announcement that came surprisingly early – then gathered my gear and headed out.

On my way down the Seward Highway south of Anchorage, along the fjord-like Turnagain Arm, I listened to the National Public Radio coverage of the election returns, which included some content from our local NPR affiliate, KSKA, on local election returns.  Our polls had only just closed recently, so it was too early to tell for most races.  Representative Don Young, the “congressman for only the Alaskans who voted for him,” was celebrating yet another easy victory that will take him into his 21st (no, that’s not a typo) term in Congress.

I did not hear any reports on how the conservatives were reacting, but I suspected that every gun shop in the United States that was still open for business in the day got yet another rush on its doors from the perpetually paranoid and afraid.  I am sure that some people – in combination with the gay rights victories in Maine, Maryland and Minnesota – were ranting about the signs of the end times.  And I am confident that thousands of Americans were grumbling about how now this was really going to be a “socialist” country and the end of our society as we know it was near.

As I continued down, I did the best I could (while driving at 55 mph) to check the skies for cloud cover and any hints of the aurora borealis.  With the exception of what appeared to be a fog hanging over Girdwood and the Alyeska Ski Resort, the skies were clear.  When I turned from the Seward Highway onto the Portage Valley road in the Chugach National Forest, I pulled over to check the latest spaceweather updates on my smart phone.  The Bz had flipped to north (not good), but the “donut” was still looking like it had promise.

I checked three locations I had scouted a week before, visualizing what I would want to do if the aurora showed up.  I waited for a little while at each one, then had to drive almost out of the valley before I could get a strong enough signal to check the usual websites for updates.  The conditions were not promising, and getting worse.  So, I picked my favorite location, set up the camera and took a couple of test shots to make sure the stars were in focus.  I set my camera to ISO 100, f/2.8, manual exposure to “bulb” setting, and locked the shutter open.  Then, I took a nap for about two hours.  The end result was this image, with the starry sky swirling around the North Star.

When I posted the image on my Facebook page, a fan made a comment noting that while there was division in our land, I brought joy to her morning by sharing something beautiful.  Her point is one that should not be lost.  As a country, we just spent billions of dollars to keep our political landscape the same as it was prior to the election cycle (same President, Democrats in control of the Senate and Republicans in control of the House).  There was a lot of acrimony generated with little or no mention of whether anyone would do anything to benefit the beautiful world we as a species call our home.  (Well, one of the candidates openly joked and mocked about the notion of the oceans rising, a few weeks before they rose in response to a super storm and swallowed New York and New Jersey.)

But fortunately, the Earth wasn’t paying attention to our elections.  It continued on as it has for billions of years.  It remained a place where beauty, life, solace and energy can be found for those who seek it.  The streams ran, the lakes and ponds continued to freeze up as winter continues to take hold of the land, the ptarmigan kept to the willows to protect themselves from predators, the wolves kept patrolling their territory for the next meal that would feed the pack, and all other sorts of natural events continued on while the humans of this continent went collectively crazy.  We are lucky to have such a place that can always be there for us, always provide the spiritual renewal we need to recover from the last crisis or cope with the next …or, perhaps, allow us to just remember what gives us life and how we can feel when we are in its presence.

Someday, though, this Earth will no longer be here.  We will likely forever change its surface because of our various manipulations of it, and then one day the Earth itself will be pulverized when our sun enters a Red Giant phase and expands its diameter out to the orbit of Jupiter.

But the same stars that gave me wonder this night will always be there, shining down on this space we currently call home, regardless of what happens on or to this world.

I have randomly been posting on my photo Facebook page lately various reasons why I enjoy winters in Anchorage.  The more I thought about it, the more reasons came to mind. 

Reason No. 1 – Golden light all day long

Most photographers will prefer to photograph at the margins of the day – early in the morning and late in the evening.  There is a good reason for this.  No, it’s not because we like to punish ourselves by getting up early (sunrise in Anchorage in the summer is about 4:40 a.m.).  The golden quality of light you can find at those times of day will make any landscape or wildlife subject sing – visually.  But in the summer and fall, that golden light dissipates fairly soon after sunrise, and does not come until late in the evening.  The higher the sun gets, the “cooler” the quality of the light, leading to less rich colors.  But in Alaska, in those parts where the sun does actually rise (Barrow experiences as many as 67 days of continuous darkness from November to January), the sun stays low on the horizon all day, leading to wonderful, golden light from sunup to sundown.  And you don’t have to get up early or stay up late to enjoy it. 

 Reason No. 2 – the Aurora Borealis 

A common misconception about the aurora borealis is that it only comes out when it is cold.  The fact that it is cold is purely coincidental.  It only gets dark enough to see the aurora in Alaska from about August through April, and that also happens to include the coldest months of the year.  But even as far south as Anchorage, you could easily spend twelve hours of the day out photographing the aurora because the skies are dark enough to see them.  See more in my Aurroa Borealis gallery.

 
Reason No. 3 – “I’m thinking, Pastels!” (Thank you, Regent Vitrini)

 When the sun is low and the mountains (and landscape) are covered in snow, a magical thing happens, called “alpenglow.”  The result is a landscape aglow with a bold pink hue.  The presence of ice and the Earth’s shadow on the horizon before sunrise and after sunset add blue hues to the landscape.  The result is a luscious combination of pinks and blues that make for a wonderful tableau of color.

 Reason No. 4 – Hoar Frost

 Despite the extreme cold temperatures, there are many areas of Alaska that have open sources of water throughout the winter.  From moving water where streams and rivers collide to coastal zones, these open waters add moisture to the air, creating low-lying fog that clings to branches and plants.  The result is “hoar frost,” a thick, crystalline structure of delicate ice that turns any plant into a work of art. 

 Reason No. 5 – Ice and Moving Water

 It’s always interesting to combine movement with a static object.  In wintertime, you can have water be both the movement and the stable object.  Whether it is icicles clinging to logs over a flowing stream or tidal ice moving out with a retreating tide, there are plenty of opportunities to capture interesting compositions with movement. 

 Reason No. 6 – Bohemian Waxwings

 Usually in December when the air takes its first dive into deep cold, they come in waves to Anchorage.  Hundreds of feathered bodies swirling and moving together, Bohemian Waxwings move from tree to tree, usually picking at the frozen red berries of the mountain ash tree.  See more Bohemian Waxwings in my Birds gallery.

 Reason No. 7 – Coastal Sunsets

 I do not know what it is, but there is something very magical about sunsets in Alaska in the winter time.  It’s probably a combination of the all-day low light as well as the length of time it takes the sun to set.  But when you add in snow drifts, ice, alpenglow and all other variety of factors, winter sunsets, especially along the coastal areas, are simply awe-inspiring.

  Reason No. 8 – Dog Mushing

 It’s the official state sport and it is a load of fun to watch and photograph – a team of high-energy dogs doing what they were born to do; pull a sled.  There are a lot of opportunities to photograph dog mushing at various competition events throughout the year – Iditarod, Yukon Quest, Fur Rendezvous, and various regional races.  Some people will simply mush for recreation, like can often be found in Anchorage’s Far North Bicentennial Park area, particularly at the Tozier Track.  And with the magnificent landscapes, dog mushing subjects allow any photographer to capture an iconic Alaskan image. 

 Reason No. 9 – Moonrises and Moonsets

 The absolute best time to photograph a moonrise or moonset is when they correspond with sunsets or sunrises.  Why?  It is easier to get a balanced exposure – with detail in the landscape as well as the moon – when the moon is rising or setting while there is some light in the sky.  And as it turns out, there are some periods during the winter months – January is my favorite – when the moon is rising or setting at that perfect time. 

 Reason No. 10 – Only the Dedicated are Out There

 News flash – it gets cold in the winter in Alaska.  The record cold temperature in the United States was registered at Prospect Creek Camp in Alaska in 1971.  It was -80 degrees Fahrenheit.   The Prospect Creek Camp is located along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the Endicott Mountains of the Brooks Range, way north of the Arctic Circle.  While that temperature may be rare, certain parts of the Interior of Alaska will routinely see temperatures in the -50 to -60 degree range.  In Anchorage, we routinely get long snaps of below zero, and frequently see -20 degrees Fahrenheit.  Cold temperatures tend to thin the herd of photographers gathering at photo hot spots.  That is just fine with me, because cold is not a deterrent; it is to be embraced.  Photo magic happens in the cold, so long as I keep my spare batteries warm. 

See these and other images in my “Winter” gallery.

Back in 2002, I was only three years into being what I considered to be a serious nature photographer.  What was that dividing line, you may ask?  There were two things that happened that helped me to understand I was getting more serious.  One was beginning to truly understand how light affected film, and the other was switching from color negative film to color slide film.

I had only been living in Alaska for three years in 2002, and the experience was overwhelming.  So many new sights, new places to explore and photograph, new friends, new work obligations, and a relationship that was in a plateau just before it started its decline.  With a demanding day job, I lacked the time and leisure to be able to go out and chase after the aurora borealis, which was putting on some rather vibrant displays because it was the peak of the eleven-year solar cycle.  I could only live vicariously through the works of local photographers who had the time and knowledge necessary to go out and capture stunning aurora images.  All of those photographers were shooting film.  There was no Twitter, no Facebook, and no smart phones.

Aurora viewing had a certain level of popularity at that time, as it has through the centuries.  Japanese tourists in particular were known to visit Alaska in the winter time specifically to view the aurora and copulate under its magic.  The commonly-held belief among the Japanese is that conceiving a child under the aurora will bring good luck.  The Nunamiut of the Brooks Range of Alaska believe that if you whistle at the aurora, it will move to your tune.  They also tell their children that if you go outside without a hat on, and the aurora is out, it will chop your head off and play with it like a ball.  The Tlingit, along with the Kwakiutl and the Salteaus Indians, believe that the aurora represents the spirits of ancestors, while the Yup’ik Eskimos of southwest Alaska believe that the northern lights were dancing animal spirits, particularly deer, seals, salmon and beluga whale.

That fascination had also translated into a photographic fixation for certain photographers in Alaska.  Most notably, Todd Salat, who for many years has been a mainstay at the Anchorage Downtown Market & Festival (aka “Saturday Market”) in downtown Anchorage and at the Dimond Mall during the holiday season, was a busy and successful aurora photographer going into the 2002 solar peak.  Back then, he, like pretty much all other photographers, was still shooting film.  And how did you know the aurora was going to be out back then?  Well, there was some raw data to observe and then you had to be out there to observe the good displays.  Salat notes, “It used to be that after a good aurora show, mark your calendar for 28 days. That’s how long it takes for the sun to revolve around it’s axis and hopefully the same sunspot/coronal hole would be pointing toward earth (geo-effective) and, once again, would be sending life-giving energy into the aurora.”  There was no means of coordinating your efforts based on multiple sources of real-time data.

How different of a world it is now as we approach that next solar cycle peak.  Everyone has a digital camera now, with a few die-hards out there capturing the natural world on film.  (I, occasionally, will take along my Hasselblad and capture images on Fuji Velvia 220 film.)  And then there is the real-time exchange of information available through Twitter and Facebook.  Twitter offers several accounts to follow for current and near real-time data, like Aurora Alerts and Aurora FNSB. On Facebook, several user groups have sprouted up, sharing real time data and the success of a good night of aurora through pictures and stories.  And there are countless photographers posting their own updates via Twitter and Facebook.  One dedicated aurora hunter has even gone so far as to post suggested locations using Google maps for viewing the aurora in the vicinity of Anchorage, the Mat-Su Valley, and Fairbanks.

The proliferation of the smart phone has had a particular impact.  Rather than being chained to a desk or laptop computer to monitor these real-time aurora and weather reports, the smart phone has allowed the intrepid photographer to be out in the field, closer to the locations necessary to capture great aurora images.  So long as there is cellular service, which is still quite sketchy in several areas of Alaska -even on the road system – the in-field photographer can react quickly to new individual reports or updates from NOAA.  There are also a variety of applications, such as 3D Sun and Aurora Buddy that offer yet another source of information to supplement the smart phone data access. 

But even with all of these new, grand advances in technology, it’s still technology, which means sometimes it goes down.

Following a peak of aurora activity over March 7-9, then heading into another three days of activity on March 11-14, the Alaska Geophyisical Institute page that is famous for providing its aurora forecasts simply went down from too much traffic.  Charles Deehr is the dedicated man behind those aurora forecasts, having been inspired to create the forecast based on a particularly vivid display he viewed in 1989.

Even with the occasional glitch, the new age of aurora-hunting technology offers more benefits than faults, according to Salat.  “A perfect example just happened yesterday.  I woke up in my truck camper and saw it was snowing with a forecast for more snow in my area.  The space weather websites were predicting active auroras that night because of an incoming solar flare (CME).  On my iPhone I viewed dozens of weather reports for every town and city within 300 miles then made a best guess and took off.  At 4 am, 200 miles from where I started the day, I finally found a clear patch and had a wonderful aurora experience.  Thank you smartphone.”

But even with all of the claims that social media and new technology create social barriers in the real world, among real people, the current aurora craze certainly goes against that common belief.  A vivid display in March 2012 over Anchorage provides a good example of this.  Fueled by promising aurora forecasts, crowds of people headed up into the hillside above Anchorage, crowding trailhead parking lots and any pullover with a view to the open sky.  I, along with several other photographers, headed down the Turnagain Arm to a pullout at the boundary of the Chugach National Forest.  After the initial display, the Facebook and Twitter feed went crazy, with people sharing reports from Fairbanks down to the Kenai Peninsula.  I saw one Tweet from local progressive radio show host Shannyn Moore, and gave her a call – she was driving up the winding roads of the Anchorage hillside, looking for a spot to view the aurora.  When the next show erupted, I abruptly hung up on her and went to photographing.  The next day, she recounted the event on her show, The Shannyn Moore Show.

Todd Salat also agrees that the real-time, shared experience, creates an added dimension to the aurora experience.  He notes, “Scientists can model the flare and are getting darn good at predicting the actual time of impact (+/-).  We now know the minute a geomagnetic substorm is in progress. You can even get alerts emailed or phoned in to you. If you’re sitting warmly in front of a home computer, time to throw on a coat and get your eyes on the sky. If you’re out in the field it’s incredibly fun, educational and almost addictive to monitor a northern lights show while it’s in progress.”

In this brave new world of aurora viewing, people will be able to enjoy and photograph the aurora borealis unlike ever before.  I can only hope that the technology that fosters greater opportunity does not outshine the magic of the aurora itself. 

Feel free to visit my Aurora Borealis gallery on my website.  I also have a prior instructional post on how to capture the aurora. 

One of the evils of the digital age is that professional nature or landscape photographers have to respond to the question, “Is that Photoshopped?”  There are two problems with the question.  One problem relates to meaning.  What aspect of Photoshop is the person inquiring about?  Does he mean to ask, “Is it a composite?”  Or, are they asking, “Are colors added to this?”  Or, perhaps, are they asking if basic enhancements have been made, such as to exposure, contrast, hue, or saturation?

The second problem with the question is the implication.  The question implies negative things about the image.  First, it implies disbelief that the image was originally good without manipulation, or that the scene could not have naturally looked as good as that.  Secondly, it implies that to make enhancements themselves is improper.

Most of all, the question reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how serious photographers – artists – approach their medium.  One of the modern sayings is that a photographer can always “fix” an image or “get it right” in Photoshop.  I am going to go out on a limb and say two very profound things: Ansel Adams would have approved of digital photography and he would have been a Photoshop user.  But Ansel Adams would vehemently disagree with the notion that you can “fix” an image or “get it right” in Photoshop.

Ansel Adams and Digital Photography

I learned photography the “old school” way involving black and white negative film and the wet darkroom.  In fact, I learned how to process film long before I really understood how to expose it well.  In college, I took a class that focused on the Ansel Adams “Zone System” of exposure.  It was there, and through reading his three-book series “The Camera”, “The Negative” and “The Print” and his book “Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs” that I came to understand and seek to emulate his philosophy on controlling an image through the entire creative process.

In his books, I read a few passages that, when I read them again years later, revealed an amazing foresight into where photography was headed:

“I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop.”— Ansel Adams, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs (1983, 59)

Unfortunately, Ansel Adams did not live to see the development of true digital photography.  While the first digital camera was created in 1975, it was created as an exercise and not for production.  The camera weighed 8 pounds (3.6 kg), recorded black and white images to a cassette tape, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels (10,000 pixels), and took 23 seconds to capture its first image.  The first analog electric camera to reach the market was  the Canon RC-701, used in the summer Olympics in 1984.  But even then, the analogs were expensive (up to $20,000 per model), of poor quality, and there were not printers available in the market.  In 1988, Canon released the RC-250 Xapshot and Nikon the QV-1000C, which produced a greyscale image of comparable quality to film and markted only to media outlets.  The first commercially available digital camera was the 1990 Dycam Model 1; it also sold as the Logitech Fotoman. It used a CCD image sensor, stored pictures digitally, and connected directly to a computer for download.  But, in the modern age of the digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras, the first developed by a major manufacturer was the Nikon D1 in 1999, with a 2.74 megapixel sensor.  Ansel Adams died in 1984.

Given the format of film that Ansel Adams was accustomed to using – he captured his images on 8×10 inch negatives – he probably would not have cared for the quality or resolution of the images produced by the first DSLRs, but given his writings, he would have been pleased to see that the new world of the electronic image was finally taking form.

Ansel Adams and Photoshop

My philosophy is, “Get it right in camera.  Perfect it in Photoshop.”  This summarizes what was Ansel Adam’s philosophy as well.

Given Ansel’s belief that creation of an image continued in the processing of film and in the creation of the print, he would have been a Photoshop user.  In traditional film, there were three phases that were involved in creation of the image: exposure of light to film, exposure of that film to chemicals at a certain temperature for a certain period of time (developing the film), and then creation of the print in a darkroom (which involved shining light through a negative onto print paper and then exposing that paper to chemicals).  Ansel Adams believed that the artist could and should control the image at each phase.  The reason for this is simple: photography according to Ansel Adams was more than just documenting a scene.  It was about creating an emotional connection to the image.  And plus, cameras are simply incapable of recording light the ways our eyes see it, so a certain level of basic enhancement is required.

First, there is the creation of the image in the camera.  If a nature or landscape photographer stopped his or her work there, then they would be nothing more than a documentarian like a crime scene photographer.  So many elements have to come together in camera in order for the image to be captured “right” out in the field: composition, weather, luck, and light.

Understanding how cameras see light is one of the most fundamental elements of photography.  Light is measured in “stops” in the world of photography.  The opening of an aperture during exposure is referred to as an “F-stop” and represented by a number like 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0, 11, 16, 22 and so on.  Each of those numbers represents a “stop” of light – from one to the next is a single “stop.” Some lenses go lower, some go even higher.  (Ansel Adams was part of a group commonly known as “Group F/64,” meaning, they were extreme landscape photographers who always shot at a very, very narrow aperture – f/64 – which created an incredible depth of field.  But cameras can not see detail in shadows in highlights across a wide dynamic range as well as the human eye can.  A human eye can see detail in as much of a dynamic range as 24 stops of light, while most DSLRs can only record 10-12 stops of light (the new Nikon D800 has a dynamic range of 14.4 at the lower ISO numbers).

Thus, when you are photographing a scene that has deep shadow and bright hightlights, you have to know that in most instances, your camera will not be able to record it in a single image without some help.  One way to give it help in camera is with a graduated neutral density filter.  This allows the highlights to be darkened to a certain number of stops while leaving the shaded area as it is.  Another method that was used in the old darkroom days was to take two images, and then combine the best exposures from the two images into one print.  (I’ll discuss later how that is done “nowadays” in the digital darkroom.)  Another common practice in black and white film photography was to add certain colored filters - red, orange, yellow, green and blue – to enhance the midtones of the image because certain colors look alike when converted to grey scale.   Using these filters allowed the contrast that those colors represented to print well in black and white.

But, for Ansel Adams, exposing the film was not the end, but just the beginning.  Using his “Zone System” as guidance, he would then manipulate the contrast of the image by how he developed the film – by changing the temperature of the chemicals and the speed with which he agitated the film during development.  It was also another way of manipulating the exposure – a slightly underexposed image could be fully exposed by adjusting the development.

Once that was completed, there was still more to do from Ansel Adams’ point of view.  Sometimes the darks were still too dark, or the highlights too bright.  These were corrected by “dodging” or “burning” the image – that is, blocking the light from reaching the print paper during the full exposure or making one part of the image get a longer exposure than the rest.  It was done not only to render detail, but to enhance the mood and contrast of the image.

In the digital darkroom – i.e., Photoshop – the two post-exposure processes have been combined into one.  There is no longer the opportunity to enhance an image while printing with a digital printer.  The image has to be print-ready when that “Print” button is clicked.  But all essential enhancements to an image in Photoshop have their origins in the digital darkroom.  The icons used in Photoshop even reflect this past – for example, the icon for “dodging” is a round object with a handle, which resembles what was commonly used for dodging in the wet darkroom.  And just as in the “old days,” the primary concerns are exposure, hue, contrast and saturation.

How each of us arrives at the point of a print-ready image varies.  For my basic digital workflow, I use a two-stop process that perhaps could resemble the development and printing phase of old.  My first step is to import the image into my library using Adobe Lightroom 4.1.  While doing that, I enter useful keywords, name the files and organize the images into my system.  Once imported, I do a quick look for sensor dust and then perform basic adjustments to exposure, contrast and saturation to make the image more rich, as opposed to the often flat look that a RAW image can sometimes have.  In this process, I am guided both by my memory and interpretation of the scene, and my examination of the histogram for the image – providing more contrast in the mid-range tones and ensuring there is detail in the shadows and highlights.

Once I have completed my edits, I select the image and then select “Edit in” and then “Open as a smart object in Photoshop.”  From there, my Photoshop launches and I am ready to make additional adjustments exposure, contrast, hues, and saturation using layers.  My objective here is not to create or add new colors that did not previously exist, but to take the exising qualities of the image and bring out the best.  I start with using “Levels” to make sure that the shadows, highlights and mid-range tones have the quality I desire.  Then, I work in the color channels to enhance the appearance of the dominant colors in the landscape and to minimize colors that are a distraction (and often the result of an imperfect white balance).  Sometimes it is necessary to increase contrast in order to improve the image, such as to reduce haze in the atmosphere or to minimize the impact of shooting through an aircraft window.  And then there are the touchups – doing the really fine-detail sensor dust control and cloning out an errant branch or blade of grass.  And with just a few more settings, it is ready to print.

Again, this process, like what Ansel Adams did with his images, merely takes the original capture and enhances its existing quality to create an image that reflects the artist’s interpretation of the scene and expresses that scene in a way the artist wishes to present to others.

As an example, I include in this post the processing steps of an image of commercial fishing boats in the boat harbor at Dillingham, Alaska.  Late evening light was casting warm colors on a canopy of clouds gathering in the sky behind a row of commercial drift boats, and I knew it would be a great image for my Bristol Bay project.  I also knew that the camera would have problems rendering detail in the boats since they were strongly back-lit.  So, I added a .09 Lee graduated neutral density filter (hard), lined up the filter to darken the sky, and captured the image.  That is what you see represented as the “RAW File” version here.  But when I saw the colors and exposure balance in Lightroom, it looked a bit “thin” to use film terminology – it lacked contrast, the boats were still too dark, and the colors were washed compared to what I recall.  So, using Lightroom 4.1, I darkened the highlights, brought up the shadows, and boosted the contrast and color saturation.  This is the “Lightroom” version as presented.  Still not fully satisfied with the colors and exposure balance, I opened the file in Photoshop through Lightroom.  There, working with layers, I selectively brightened the area of the boats, darkened the sky a little more, and then worked within the existing color channels to render both the boats and the sky as vividly as I recalled them.  This is displayed in the final “Photoshop” version.

Taking things a step too far for Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams likely would not have, however, approved of two other ways that Photoshop is often used.  He would have likely disapproved of the use of “composite” images – where you take elements from two or more different images and put them together.  For example, taking a full moon captured with a 500mm lens and putting it into a nighttime landscape captured using a 20mm lens.  A moon shot with a 20mm lens would be a glorified dot, but with a 500mm lens it is huge.  You’ve seen these shots before.  Or the caribou silhoutted against the aurora borealis – as if that caribou is going to stand still for you for 8 or 15 seconds while you capture the aurora.  He would have disapproved because those images could not be created in-camera, with the exception of a double exposure.  For me, I find that they can be useful and acceptable, so long as they are disclosed as being composites.  For example, stitched panoramic and HDR images are technically composites, as they combine two or more images to create one.

Ansel also would have disapproved of what is more accurately described as a “photographic illustration” than photography.  Sure, it starts with an image, or several images, and then becomes expanded, enhanced, tweaked, and greatly manipulated using a variety of software packages.  Again, it has its uses – especially when it comes to illustrating concepts and for marketing.  But it is not meant, nor should it be used, to pass off a print as a representation of something that happened in the natural world.  Some HDR images are so over-processed they often have the appearance of a photographic or graphic illustration.  Oddly enough, I have several times created both a natural-looking HDR image and a garish-looking HDR image, and so far, it is the garish images that stock clients choose to purchase.  But, like composites, an HDR image should be disclosed as such in captioning.

In the end, a photographer must pursue his or her own processes when creating art.  I follow the Ansel Adams approach, using modern tools to accomplish what he so masterfully did using his three-stage process.  But if you are using digital tools to go beyond that, then the ethical thing to do is to properly identify the image in captioning.  I follow the North American Nature Photography Association’s “Truth in Captioning” guidlines.

I enjoy the Anchorage Downtown Market, also known as Saturday Market.  Sure, it’s a little crowded on a gorgeous, sunny day, but then again, the same can be said for most public places in Anchorage.  We really love our sun, especially if we haven’t seen it in a few weeks.  The last time I had a booth there was in 2009, when I was promoting my “Icons of Alaska” series for the 50th Anniversary of Alaska statehood.  But I keep going back to check the produce, have some fine Alaskan eats, and, most especially, check out what the competition is up to.

A key to any successful business is to do good market research.  One of the important components of that research is to know what is available from other businesses in the market, and what the price point is of their products.  For any photographer who wants to know what the Anchorage market is offering, Saturday Market is a prime location to do some solid market research. 

On any given weekend, you can see at least six photographers with booths set up at the market.  When I was there on Saturday, there were at least eight.  I only took the time to visit six of them, but what I saw led to some surprises. 

Two of the photographers with booths there were selling some pretty old inventory with no new images.  One had a range from 1995-2001, with one 2005 print and one 2011 print.  Another, a wildlife photographer, had an inventory that was shot entirely with film.  (If you have a trained eye, you can spot a film original from a digital original.)  No serious wildlife photographer has been shooting film since about 2004.  Unless you are selling particular prints that have generated tens of thousands of dollars each in sales, I cannot imagine why you would keep such an old inventory on hand without incorporating some new images. 

Many of the photographers also stuck to the same subjects, over and over again.  Bears, bears, bears, with some moose and the occasional wolf.  The wildlife photos were mostly closeup portaits with little or no indication of habitat or interaction with other wildlife.  The locations were the standards: Denali, Denali, and Denali.

The most shocking experience was with one particular photographer who had a print of a brown bear sow with four cubs.  Although a sow with four cubs is rare according to Wild Mammals of North America, even measured as a likelihood of 0.9 percent by research in The Candian Field-Naturalist, the fact that he had captured the image was not shocking.  What surprised me was his assertion that he was “the only photographer in Alaska” with an image of a sow with quadruplets.  I thought that was a rather bold statement to make, unless he had checked around and confirmed that.  Given the proliferation of “wildlife photographers” in the digital age, I thought that would be hard to do. 

In all reality, all he needed to do was a little market research of his own using the other photographer booths that were set up at the Saturday Market.  When I stopped by the Siciliano Photography booth, the husband and wife team of Robert and Candice Siciliano, I was perusing the many new images that Robert had in stock, including a striking image of a brown bear sow with her four cubs that he had recently captured at Katmai.  The image can be found in the Siciliano’s Newest Releases gallery.  (I have since seen that same image decorating the side of one of Anchorage’s hotel shuttle buses.)  I told him of my encounter with the other photographer, and he chuckled. 

There are a few standouts at the market who, along with the Sicilianos, are worth mentioning.  Todd Salat, one of Alaska’s premiere aurora borealis photographers, was there with his usually stunning and attractively-displayed selection of aurora images going back over the last decade and more.  Unlike the other photographers with the aging inventory, Todd’s work included both new images from the March 2012 aurora storms but stunning, vibrant and dramatic images going back for years.  John Schweider is perhaps one of the more versatile photographers, offering a landscape and wildlife inventory that ranges from the Arctic National Widlife Refuge to the Anchorage area and on down to Lake Clark National Park.

In the winter of 2010, I had the pleasure of spending a few days out at a base camp on a sheet of aufeis on the North Fork of the Koyukuk River in Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve with Park Ranger Zak Richter and his dog team.  To get there, I drove to Fairbanks, caught a small plane (Cessna 185) flight out to the town of Bettles, and then another ride on that same plane (once the winds died down) out to the camp site.

One evening, we took a trail we had broke earlier in the day upriver to further explore the area near the Gates of the Arctic: Mount Boreal and Frigid Crags.  Once we reached a nice view point for the Gates, we stopped and gave the dogs an extended rest.  I spent a few minutes capturing images of the scene, including Zak and his team, and we continued back down the river back to camp.

Riding in the sled of a dog team is quite an experience.  The position is rather compromising; you only have a canvas sled and some wooden runners between you and ice, snow, tree roots, rocks, and whatever else may come along.  I found myself rattled on more than one occasion, and once in a while slightly freaked out by the sound of cracking ice beneath us as we moved along.  The smells are also quite interesting; you are essentially downwind from nine dog butts.  I’ll let your imagination fill in the spaces on that one.  But the view is incredible, leading to a whole new appreciation of how to travel across the backcountry in winter.

Along the way, I was thinking how cool it was to be so close to the ground and to see all that ice and snow go speeding by beside me.  Then Zak said something about how cool of a shot it would be.  My camera was already on my lap, cradled close to me for safety and warmth, so I held it up and framed what I thought would be an interesting view.  But the composition was only part of the equation.  I wanted to capture the wide scene and the sense of speed.  I fortunately had my 12-24mm lens already on my camera (a Nikon D300), so that gave me the wide view I wanted.  But, in order to get the speed, I set the aperture to f/22 and the ISO to 100 to ensure a slow shutter speed.

This image was selected as a finalist in the “People in Nature” category in the 2010 Windland Smith Rice International Awards (but not selected as a winning image).  My greatest praise for this image came from none other than Jeff Schultz, the official photographer of the Iditarod for over twenty years.  At the annual Alaska Stock meeting that year, during the photographers’ New Images slide show, this image came up and Jeff (who owns the company) said almost immediately “Do we have this one yet?”  When someone who has been photographing dog mushing as long as he has been gets excited by a dog mushing photo, you know you have accomplished something.

You can view and purchase this image in my Gates of the Arctic gallery.