Archive for the ‘Lakes’ Category
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
The Wrangell Mountains, covered in fresh snow, or 'termination dust', in early fall, and reflection in a small unnamed alpine lake. Wrangell mountains, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image to view a larger version of the photo.
Hey Folks,
How’s this one for a turn around? I just got back from a great hike with the Ball family, a trio of Texans who came up to Alaska in 2006 and ventured out on a trip that still stands on record as the worst weather of any backpacking trip I’ve ever done. 10 days solid of near snow, ice sleet and rain the entire trip!
Hardy folks, these texans; amazingly, they came back this year for round 2. Somewhat trepidatiously, I cautiously planned the hike. We scheduled it for a route that I walked last year in nothing but horrible weather .. I figured this way, when the Texans brought their nasty weather up here, I’d be on a route I was comfortable hiking in bad weather. 
Here’s the scene I awoke to Sunday morning – this is the view literally outside my tent door. What a fantastic morning, and trip overall, this was. Some great people, great scenery, and great weather. Welcome to Alaska, Texans!
We laughed a lot, hiked a lot, ate a lot, and enjoyed some of the best mountain scenery Alaska, or anywhere else, has to offer. Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve – best viewed from my tent door.
Cheers
Carl
Tags: Alaska, backpacking trips, Carl Donohue, Fall, Landscape features, scenics, Skolai Images, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Adventures, Alaska, Backpacking and Hiking, Cool stories, Lakes, Landscape features, Mountains, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 3 Comments »
Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Mount Sanford and reflection, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.
Hey Folks,
Here’s a shot from my trip this last week to Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve. I’m so wanting this shot to come together – as many times as I’ve been here, and waited for the right light, it hasn’t happened yet. This particular morning the air was calm, so the reflection was nice, and the mist added a nice touch, but the alpenglow, earlier in the morning, didn’t happen.
What’s the longest hour of a landscape photographer’s day? That hour between when the light first touches the clouds/mountain tops and when the sun actually rises high enough to light up the valley floor. Standing around, wet and cold, for an hour waiting to see if “Stage II” of the morning light happened, is a tough choice. But, then the light comes up, and it’s all forgotten. What fickle creatures we can be.
I’m pressed for time folks, but I’ll try to schedule another post or 2 for this next week. I just got in this evening and am heading out again sunday morning for 10 days. See ya soon.
Cheers
Carl
Tags: Alaska, Carl Donohue, Landscape features, Mount Sanford, Mt Sanford, scenics, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Alaska, Lakes, Landscape features, Mountains, Summertime, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 5 Comments »
Saturday, June 26th, 2010
Morning reflection, beaver pond, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.
Hey Folks
Here’s a quick shot from my recent few weeks in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. I’m leaving in the morning for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and will return in 2 weeks. I’ll try to post something from that trip then. Until that time, I hope you enjoy this scene.
This photo was taken maybe an hour after dawn – around 4:30 am.
Cheers
Carl
Tags: Alaska, boreal forest, Carl Donohue, Landscape features, reflections, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Abstracts, Alaska, Forests, Lakes, Landscape features, Summertime, Trees, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 6 Comments »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
A tourist hiker stands beside the shores of Moraine Lake and watches people canoeing on the lake The grand scenery of Moraine Lake and the Wenkchemna Peaks, or 10 Peaks at Moraine Lake make the area a popular tourist destination for hiking, canoeing, photography and adventures. Hiker, Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Click the image to see how good I look in red.
hey Folks
I was scanning through some images recently and stumbled on to this one. Here’s me in stunning mauve at Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, in Alberta Canada.
Most photographers know how much difference putting a person or 2 in the photo can make to the salability of an image. And adding some color makes a difference as well.
But the image must tell a story. For stock photography, the more generic the story might be, the more possible different uses it might have. This could be a tourist, a hiker, someone lost, a photographer, etc. It could even be someone advertising Arcteryx jackets.
But the real story of this photo, for me, is my first time to Moraine Lake. I spend a whole day just soaking up the grandeur of this place. I can think of very few places that are so simply pretty as the Canadian Rockies. They’re almost picture perfect. Many other places have a wonder all their own, and I’d never forsake the wildness of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, for example, for the Canadian Rockies. But for sheer ‘hop out of the car and be amazed’ classical mountain beauty, the Canadian Rockies have it going on.
I’d been to Jasper National Park a few times, photographing wildlife there. I’d driven through Banff in order to get to Jasper. And I’d thought to myself ‘wow, Banff is pretty’ more than once. But the first time I drive up to Moraine Lake, got out the car and walked over to the lake, it just floored me. I walked along the lake’s edge, and sat and stared at everything. At the detail or these incredible peaks above me, the silence of the montane forest, and that water. That amazing water. It just absolutely blew me away.
They day was cloudy, it was early in the summer, and few people were around; those that were had taken rental canoes out on the lake, and I had the shoreline pretty much to myself. So I just sat and soaked it in. If you ever go to Banff National Park, and I recommend that you do, at least once in your life, give yourself plenty of time up at Moraine Lake. It takes time just to see it – you can’t stand at the overlook, glance around, and see it all. give yourself a day, and embrace the place. Your life will be richer for it.
More photos of Banff National Park.
Cheers
Carl
Tags: Alberta, Banff National Park, Canada, Carl Donohue, hiking, Moraine Lake, Skolai Images, tourist
Posted in Adventures, Backpacking and Hiking, Banff National Park, Canada, Lakes, Landscape features, Mountains, People, Photography, Travel | 4 Comments »
Friday, October 16th, 2009
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” – Thich Nhat Hahn.
Hey Folks,
Well, with all the comments about landscapes versus bear photos on the last few pages, I thought I’d try a compromise. I know, I know, compromises end up pleasing no one, right? Well, so be it.
This is possibly the last photo I took on my trip last month, a sunset over Naknek Lake – I was hoping for some nice clear skies the following morning – and actually had a big sunrise – but then it clouded over, very soon afterward, and no good light was had for the morning shooting. Then I had to pack and get ready for the plane to come pick me up. The trip was all over too soon.
The photo is one exposure, so no real photoshop trickery – I even left the gull in the bay (@ Ron ).
The real reason I wanted to post this photo was, honestly, a talk I went to listen to tonight, at a local bookstore, by a great Alaskan writer, Bill Sherwonit. (more…)
Tags: AK, Alaska, animals, bears, Brown bears, Carl Donohue, Grizzly Bears, images, Katmai, Katmai National Park, Landscape features, mammals, Mt. La Gorce, Naknek Lake, photos, scenics, sunset, Ursus arctos, Wildlife
Posted in Alaska, Environmental Issues, Fall, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Lakes, Landscape features, Mountains, Musings, People, Wildlife | 7 Comments »
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Hey Folks,
This one is for my buddy Mark Vail, who I know has to be getting a little homesick right about now. He’s been gone from his home a few days.
“A few days??”, I hear you ask, “that’s nothing!”
Well, sure it is – to most people. But most people don’t have this view by the trail to their crib, either.
Fireweed Mountain and a perfect reflection in a small pond, right off the McCarthy Road, taken this last fall, on the end of our Skolai Pass photo tour. Inclement weather suggested we fly out a day earlier than planned, and we made the best of the following morning (which was, of course, gorgeous weather) with some fall colors along the McCarthy Road. You might recall some scenes of Fireweed Mountain in the winter I posted in the past.
We commented on the difference between roadside photography and backcountry photography. One noticeable difference is how nice it is to pull up the vehicle at a likely spot, hop out, scout out some compositions and then start photographing, with the doors to the van wide open and some killer tunes from the ole iPod rockin’ our world as we clicked and clicked away. I think we were listening to Emmylou Harris as we shot this, “Where Will I Be”, from Wrecking Ball. Great album!
We actually had a great day shooting, and got some nice images – markedly different to the high open alpine stuff we’d been photographing up at Skolai Pass the day before. The contrast in scenery was fun, and the colors were great.
I’ll try to mix in some more images from that trip here as I go through my new collection of bear photos from the recent Katmai trip.
Cheers
Carl
Tags: AK, Alaska, boreal forest, Carl Donohue, Fall, Fireweed Mountain, images, Landscape features, McCarthy Road, photos, reflections, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Adventures, Alaska, Backpacking and Hiking, Fall, Forests, Lakes, Landscape features, Mountains, Travel, Trees, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 8 Comments »
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
A winter sunset over the Mentasta Mountains, Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
“The effort to clarify our sight cannot begin in the society, but only in the eye and in the mind. It is a spiritual quest, not a political function. We each must confront the world alone and learn to see it for ourselves”. So says Wendell Berry, one of my favorite writers, in his book “The Unforeseen Wilderness”. The book, a dearly needed plea to save Kentucky’s Red River Gorge from a nefarious plan to dam it, was written nearly 40 years ago. I haven’t read the book completely yet, as I just bought it this afternoon. But I glanced at it, and this passage caught my attention. Berry continues on:
“the figure of the photographic artist – not the tourist-photographer who goes to a place, bound by his intentions and preconceptions, to record what has already been recorded and what he therefore expects to find, but the photographer who goes into a place in search of the real news of it”.* (more…)
Tags: Alaska, Art, artist, Carl Donohue, Guy Tal, Landscape features, photographer, Photography, photos, scenes, scenics, snow, Sunsets, The Unforeseen Wilderness, Wendell Berry, Winter
Posted in Abstracts, Alaska, Elk, Fall, Forests, Lakes, Landscape features, Mountains, Photo business., Skiing, Snowboarding, Travel, Web Stuff, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 3 Comments »
Friday, May 15th, 2009
Hey Folks,
Here’s another photo of Mt. Sanford from a recent trip to the north side of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, Alaska. The park is basically accessible via 2 roads, one from the west that runs into McCarthy, and the other from the north, that runs south to Nabesna. Generally, I’ve always enjoyed the south side area of the park more, but I think the views along the road are often more impressive on the north side. On a clear day, the Wrangell Mountains lie to the west and dominate the landscape. Mt. Sanford, pictured here, 16 237′ tall, is a great view. Mt. Wrangell, over 14 000′ tall, is also visible, and even a distant Mt. Blackburn can be seen from the entrance of the park. (more…)
Tags: AK, Alaska, Carl Donohue, Landscape features, Mount Sanford, Mountains, Mt Sanford, photos, Sanford, scenery, scenics, snow, Winter, Wrangell, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Alaska, Lakes, Landscape features, Mountains, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | No Comments »
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
Hey Folks,
This is a photo of Mt Sanford, in winter, taken early one morning. In 2 weeks I had 3 mornings with some alpenglow. The first one I didn’t shoot because it was so socked in with cloud an hour before dawn that I didn’t figure the light was going to happen – and being tired, I slept in. I awoke, looked over, and saw a nice magenta glow on the face of Sanford, but there wasn’t really any kind of way to shoot it from where I was. Such is my life, it seems. I did enjoy a hot coffee and (more…)
Tags: Alaska, black and white, Mount Sanford, Mountains, Mt Sanford, photos, snow, snowshoe, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Alaska, Lakes, Landscape features, Mountains, Travel, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
Hey Folks,
I must admit; I really like shooting the patterns the windblown snow makes on the ground in the winter. They can be some pretty cool patterns. This frozen lake, covered in over 3′ of snow (deeper in some places, with drifts) was a nice place to wander around on and look for images.
The setting sun faded slowly across the lake, and I chased it’s light from shore to shore as it slipped into the night. (more…)
Tags: Alaska, black and white, Carl Donohue, frozen, Landscape features, photos, scenics, snonw, Twin lakes, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Aerial Photos, Lakes, Landscape features, Mountains, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | No Comments »
