Alaskan Adventures
Well I am now back from Alaska. I had an unbelievable time and came away with plenty of new images. I will most likely elaborate on the trip and certain locations when I get around to posting some of the images. I will not process any of the new images until I am behind a decent monitor as I am working off my laptop at the moment.
I hope everyone is well and I apologize that I have not been visiting/commenting on everyones blogs lately. I have spent as much time shooting as possible.
Here is a quick 3 image stitch I threw together from a day spent out in Katmai National Park, Alaska. We were flown in by light aircraft and dropped off on the tidal flats of the Coast. After seeing the pilot off we began hiking up the beach until we reached this inlet. We just sat and watched as various Coastal Brown Bears made their way along the shoreline in search for salmon. This time of the year the salmon are “on the run” and the bears are doing their best to feed on the salmon as much as possible before winter sets in. It was an incredible site to see and to be out there amongst them a long way from anywhere was very surreal.
It is something I will remember for the rest of my life.
Click image for full view
Death Valley – 2 minute window
On the drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles we took a small detour and headed through Death Valley National Park. What an amazing place. Just as we arrived in the park the rain began to absolutely bucket down, here I was thinking it didn’t really rain in Death Valley.
The storms that had been battering the Californian coastline had managed to head further east into and beyond Death Valley. From the time we arrived in the park (noon) until just before sundown it had been continually raining and the skies were grey and dull. Then suddenly in a matter of a few minutes things started to get interesting, the skies began to open a little and I could see light hitting sections of the surrounding mountains. Then after another minute or so it opened right up and a rainbow appeared……. It was one of those ‘get set the f*#k up and take a shot of something’ type of situations…… I quickly pulled over, sprung out of the car, ran around like a nutter trying to find something, anything to throw in the foreground
WOW! a shitty little stream of runoff – you’ll do!
The whole show was only a matter of minutes so I had to make do with what I was given.
Unfortunately we were on a tight schedule and were only in Death Valley for less than 24hours. It is the type of place you could easily spend a week or so shooting as there is so much on offer. Hopefully I will get back there sometime.
Mono Lake Panoramic View
Mono Lake is situated within the Bodie Hills, on the eastern side of the Sierra Mountains. I really enjoyed shooting this area. It has a lot to offer and I would loved to have spent more time here. This image was shot just before proceeding to the shoreline of the lake and shooting the Tufas (calcium carbonate limestone towers).
Sausalito
Here is another shot from the morning shoot of Sausalito, San Francisco.
I hope you like it.
Sausalito – San Francisco
This image was taken from Sausalito looking out toward Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay area. Myself and Neal headed to the location about 30 minutes before first light which proved to be a good move as this is when I found the light to be at its best for this particular morning. It was still dark so the city lights reflected nicely off the low lying cloud and light fog that was about. We were also hoping for a spectacular sunrise but unfortunately the cloud was too heavy on the horizon.
Luck comes into play in a big way when you only have that one or two days to shoot a particular location. You can do as much research as you like, and have allllll the gear at hand, but having the weather do exactly what you want, when you want just isn’t going to happen. I bet if Jesus was here today and into this whole photography thing he would capture some incredible images.
6 image stitch
L U K E A U S T I N P H O T O G R A P H Y 