Skolai Images

Hey Folks,

I was going to write tonight about another company that I’ve had great dealings with, and do a little plug for them, but I’ve changed my mind. The news has been all about the Exxon Valdez case, so maybe I’ll make a few notes here about this subject. For those of you who haven’t been following it (and I haven’t followed this latest round too closely), the US Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments from Exxon and the plaintiffs, folks from the the Prince William Sound, Alaska area, specifically concerning punitive damages. I’m no lawyer, so my comments are worth the price you’re paying to read them - but I’ll share them here regardless.

In late March 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil tanker dumped nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound. These estimates come largely from simple math - 53 million (the number of gallons originally onboard), minus what was later reclaimed from the vessel equalled 10.8 million gallons missing, i.e., spilled. Many watch groups argue these estimates, though widely accepted, are underreported, because much of the oil recovered from the ship was diluted with sea water. The accident occurred, investigations found, primarily because the ship’s captain was drunk and sleeping at the time. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Ahhh - the days feel longer already. It’s like Boxing Day for Solstice.

I told you I’d show a couple of photos of how big Mundaca is. This is my friend KC, from New Zealand, guiding a 16′ raft through the entrance wave of Mundaca. One guide plus 6 people in a heavy raft and the wave stands it up almost totally vertical. Some awesome power in the water here. KC’s a killer guide, he’s worked on rivers all over the world, including the Zambezi and the White Nile in Africa. Not too bad for a Kiwi!

Shooting whitewater rafting photos is kinda hard - I found the hardest thing was to not fill the buffer - mostly because the rapids were so big, I could shoot the whole series and still miss stuff. The D2x has a buffer of 17 shots when shooting raw files, and it’s amazing how quickly they go by when you shoot 5 frames per second. (more…)

Hey Folks,

I’ll maybe try to get one more post in here before I hit the road, so I’ll do 2 for today. This is a photo from the past. I’ve been catching up on some editing and web updates he last few weeks here, and haven’t really got out to shoot too much. As a result of that, I’ll try to post a couple of shots from years gone by that I like - and maybe even post a few of the countless thousands I didn’t like. This photo was from an overnight trip a couple of years ago to the Chattooga River in north east Georgia. The Chattooga River defines the border between Georgia and South Carolina, and lies between the Sumter , Nantahala and Chattahoochee National Forests.

Congress designated the Chattooga River a “Wild and Scenic River” in 1974, and I’d attest to that designation. It’s both wild and scenic! The designation protects a corridor along the river for nearly 60 miles, though it’s somewhat silly (more…)

Hey Folks

I’m going to ease away from the blog for a little while here. Not because I want to, but because, well, I won’t have regular email access for the next few weeks. Hopefully I’ll be able to check in reasonably often and maybe post something, but it’ll be slow around here. I can’t tell you right now exactly where I’ll be, but it should be a lot of fun.

In the meantime, here’s another photo of the endangered Baker River, or Rio Baker, down in Region XI, Patagonia. I’ve written about this situation a little recently, (more…)

Hey Folks

Why 2 posts so close to one another? I just got an email from this fella, whom I met and hung with in Chile this last winter (their summer). We went down to the Baker River together, along with a bunch of crazy folks, and all had a good time. We were there for 4 days, but the trip took another 2 days traveltime. It was quite a mission. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Here’s the last of my series on the Arctic national Wildlife Refuge, for now. I’d like to write some more about the place, but will do that later. I wanted to post this because I read somewhere the other day that because the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not a pristine wilderness, we may as well go ahead and drill there. What so often is forgotten or neglected is that much of the disturbances to the pristine nature of the land here are a function os previous oil exploration. Out on the coastline, the tundra is littered with signs and debris of oil exploration. Whilst I was hiking one afternoon, I counted over 300 empty oil barrels lying on the tundra in one very small section of coastal plain. (more…)

Hey Folks,

I was lucky enough to spend a few hours one long afternoon with this little short-tailed weasel. I’ve hardly ever had to work as hard as trying to photograph this little fellow. Weasels are like ferrets on crack. Unbelievable energy. They stop for a second, glance around, and take off again, top speed, racing around, darting this way and that, (more…)

Hey Folks,

I wanted to follow my previous post with this photo, showing the environment and landbase the tundra swan lives within.This is the same bird, in the same pond, from almost the exact same spot - but this photo was taken with a wider lens (Nikon 70-200mm). I love tight, close-up portraits of wildlife (and people) but I always enjoy a photo showing the subject in place. I think of ‘in place’ as reference to the greater scope of what we mean by ‘nature’. When we closely consider the world around us, we begin to see that these creatures and features we share this existence with do not live in isolation, and aren’t, in fact, separate from one another. (more…)

Hey Folks,

On my last evening in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, camped out on the edge of the coastal plain by the Beaufort Sea, I hiked countless hours trying to find subjects to photograph. The light was magical, from about 10:00pm until I went to bed at 4:30am. Unfortunately, I had a tough time finding subjects to shoot. I saw a few foxes, but didn’t get close enough to any for photos. I saw my first ever snowy owl, an unbelievably beautiful, yet extremely skittish bird that I never got close to. (more…)

Hey Folks

Wildlife in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge. This is a red fox kit, taken just a hundred yards or so from where we camped along the Canning river on the coastal plain. This photo was taken around 3am. It was pretty cloudy and overcast, but the clouds didn’t go all the way to northern horizon, so eventually there was a little break, where the sun dipped just below the cloudline towards the horizon, (more…)