Take a moment today to remember those who have given their lives so that we may live in freedom.

This is my eighth year in Katmai, Alaska to photograph the bears. When my friends, Ted & Joan told me about the wonderful lodge in the middle of nowhere with amazing bear photography I had to check it out and since that first visit I have made my annual pilgrimage to the last frontier where you can photograph the gentle giants of Alaska, the Coastal Brown Bears as they go about their daily lives. It’s an adventure just getting to the lodge with the weather and tides games that we have to play. There has to be a 300 foot ceiling for the float planes to fly and we have to arrive when the tides are relatively high so we can get out gear from the plane to our cabins. Well, the fine pilots at Andrews Air got us to the lodge safely in two Beavers and a 206…

Our home for the next week is a remote lodge in the Alaskan Wilderness…

But before you think we are totally roughing it, I have to disclose that we have hot running water and flush toilets in our cabins, great guides Perry and Chris who bust their butts getting us to the bears, a real sweetheart of a person, Angela, who keeps things running smoothly at the lodge and Dan, a gourmet chef who will fill our tummies with delicious food. He had home made corned beef sandwiches waiting for us when we arrived. And these weren’t just any corned beef sandwiches, he baked the bread, corned the beef (whatever that means), made the horseraddish from scratch…well you get the idea. And that was just lunch. But, I get ahead of myself…before we could even unpack and sit down to lunch we had two bears near the lodge sparring…

and watching us watch them as if to say “What, you’ve never seen a bear before?”…

All this happened in the first minutes of our arrival. The two bears which look to be a mated pair spent the afternoon appearing and disappearing around the lodge. We got settled in, photographed the bears off and on all afternoon and had a wonderful dinner of salmon, pork, polenta with Rosemary, a salad and a delicious baked apple treat that Dan “whipped” up before everyone headed off to our cabins to dream about the bears, sea otters, harbor seals, eagles, kittiwakes, puffins, and maybe whales that we will have the opportunity to aim our lenses at over the next week. I can hardly wait to see what’s in store for us. Stay tuned…

Images captured with Nikon D3X, AF-S 24-70mm, &0-200mm, TC-14E II on Lexar Digital Media.

Moab DLWS came and went so fast if I didn’t have the photos to prove it, I would wonder if it was a dream. Yet, it can’t be a dream as I didn’t sleep enough to dream. Back home for a couple days now after a sixteen day, three event travel adventure and I’m finishing my editing and filing of my images…

As I’m going through my images from Moab I’m reminded of the film days when we didn’t get to see our images for a week or two after we had made the photographs. That’s exactly what it felt like going through my Moab images… Even though I had taken a quick peek each night to select a few blog images and to make sure there were no glaring issues to deal with, I dropped into bed with my images un-edited! Yes, you read right, I went to bed without editing my images! I figured if I’m falling asleep at the computer, I will make mistakes editing and it’s best to wait until I have a clear head…

What I found was a little treasure trove of images that I have now finished and want to share with you. Moab is a place that is rich with colorful photo opportunities of gorgeous red-rock landscapes…

But, it’s also the little treasures that you find in the nooks and crannies of an old ghost town…

It’s the “Wild-West” complete with a rustic jail…

and houses built right into the rocks…

It’s sweeping vistas with the light playing tag across the rocks too grand to capture in one click…

And the desert storms…

No DLWS is complete without Joe McNally conjuring up some comic book story line in his mind that he then brings to life with a willing subject, several VALs (voice activated light stands) and his mastery of light…available light…that would be…any *%$# light that’s available which will likely include a handful of Nikon Speedlights strategically placed…

Images made with Nikon D3X, AF 16mm Fisheye, AF-S 24-70mm, AF-S 70-200mm VR II on Lexar Digital Media

I’m off to Alaska tomorrow to photograph the bears, the birds and the beauty that is our last frontier. Stay tuned…

With Eyjafjallajokull Volcano active over the last few months, I have been anxiously waiting for August when I will travel to Iceland myself to lead a workshop with Focus on Nature I can hardly wait to see the volcano and the aftermath of it’s strength and fury. (Some of the workshops have had the opportunity to see Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in person, photographing the many stages of activity.) In addition, I am looking forward to seeing the wild Icelandic Horses, the glaciers, the amazingly picturesque countryside. It’s going to be one heck of a great time. There are still a few spots open so contact Focus on Nature and sign up now if you too want to join me on an Iceland Adventure like no other.

Living in the Portland metropolitan area I don’t get many chances to photograph star trails. There is too much light pollution from the city lights not to mention the very few clear nights so when I am traveling to remote areas where there aren’t any city lights to brighten the sky and the forecast calls for clear skies, oh yeah, and the moon is just a sliver, I find a nice dark place to set up my camera to photograph star trails…

There are actually several ways to photograph star trails. I’ll share the method I have been using lately. I set up my tripod in a dark area, put my camera on manual BULB setting, aperture at f5.6 with ISO 200, long exposure noise reduction turned on in camera and insert a fully charged battery. I select a wide angle lens (14-24mm or 24-70mm range), put it in manual focus and set focus at infinity (note:use a flashlight and actually set the focus to the infinity mark, don’t turn the lens to the end, it goes beyond infinity and you will not get a sharp image) find the north star which is just off the end of the two stars that are farthest from the Big Dipper handle and aim my camera to the skies, plug in a remote release (I use a Nikon MC-36) close the rear cover on the viewfinder (if you have one) and click…

The above image was made using a ninety minute exposure. With in camera noise reduction turned on, the total length of time your camera is on is double that of your night exposure. So, once the ninety minutes was up, my camera blinked “JOB NR” while it made another ninety minute exposure of black giving itself a reference for reducing the noise. If you aim directly at the North Star, you will get a circular effect as the stars travel around the North Star like in the above photo.

To add interest to your star trails, put something in the foreground. While in Moab recently, my porch looked out at the cliffs along the Colorado River so, I used them to give me a base for my star trails and I aimed off center of the North Star giving more of an arc than a circle…

I light painted the cliffs in the foreground to bring out the color rather than having a silhouette. And then there are those happy accidents where I set my camera for a second round and even though I couldn’t see it, the light of morning began to bleed into the image adding a warmth to the sky…

Using this method, post processing is very easy. I simply added a pass of NIK Dfine 2.0 to further reduce the noise, added a contrast curve and the results are what you see above. The longer the exposure the longer the trails will be. I’m going to have my AC adapter with me in Alaska next week and if the skies are clear, I plan on shooting a 3-4 hour star trail to get longer trails. This will definitely require the AC adapter as my camera with a fully charged battery is good for about the ninety minutes of exposure and the ninety minutes of NR. So, the next time you find yourself beyond the reach of city lights at night and you have a clear sky, give star trails a shot!

Tech Facts: Nikon D3S, with AF-S 24-70mm mounted on a Gitzo GT3541LS tripod with Really Right Stuff BH-55 ballhead, MC-36 remote release (to lock the shutter open for the long exposure) and a flashlight to see what you are doing while setting up. Camera on Manual> BULB setting (ninety minute exposures), aperture 5.6 with ISO set to 200. In camera long exposure noise reduction turned on. Lens set to manual focus with focus set to infinity. Click, set your alarm and go to bed!

***Two quick notes…I set my white balance on Auto and try to find a place off the beaten track. In the Grand Canyon, we found a pullout off the road and took our cameras down the path a bit to avoid any headlights that may come our way. Just at the end of a 1 1/2 hour exposure, Ranger Ricck pulled into the turnout to see if wee were ok. His headlights bathed our cameras in light. I dashed to the cameras releasing the shutters as quickly as possible but, they all had a warm, bright glow about them…1 1/2 hours of work shot down in mere seconds….
Oh yeah, if you go somewhere in your car and plan t sit it out, take your computer, ipad or some other device to watch movies. It sure helps to pass the time. Thanks, Steve for brining the entertainment to while away the long cold hours of night.