Aug 19, 2010 | Wildlife Photography
On day two we got glass on a couple of these amazing critters and on day three, spent 9hrs with them. This is what we were after on our project. What’s cool about this critter? The list is a damn long one from being the longest true hibernator on the planet to probably one of the first to go extinct in the near future from climate warming.
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And that’s why I was up there, the Alaska Marmot being part of a long tern project that started three years ago for me in AK. Now when the biologists tell you that you’re one of the first to ever photograph this species (many mistaken the Hoary Marmot for the Alaska), well all that pain to get up to their home is just that much sweeter. The icing on the cake was the technology we brought to the biology, the D3s capturing video of the Alaska Marmot’s biology that was only guessed at before. One piece of video will be turned into a scientific paper in the future. That’s way cool and I feel very fortunate I can bring that to a project!
What I’ve shared here is just a very teeny weeny part of our adventure. There’s is a whole lot more and if you want to hear it, you have two options. I’ll be in the PeachPit Theater at Photoshop World at 5:00PM on 01 Sept where I’ll tell this story along with some others from my upcoming book, Captured. And the whole story along with the nuts & bolts of working on the North Slope along with a special piece on how to start a photography business will be in the upcoming issue of the BT Journal. But for right now, just say hello to a new friend of mine. You’ll be hearing a lot more about him in the future!
Photo captured by D3x, 600VR w/TC-20e3 on a grand day!
Aug 19, 2010 | Landscape Photography
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Yeap. we did the planning, over a year in advance. We were with THE experts, the best in the field and we made the trek and none of that, not one single iota of it guarantees that once you get on site, you will get to make a single click. That’s how it goes in wildlife photography and despite shelling out $4k to make the adventure happen, after day two, we’d not even seen our quarry let alone got any glass on it. And I’m just fine with that!
Na, sitting on the slope with rain dripping off my gear and myself is not how I wanted to spend my day but to be honest with you, that’s better than being stuck inside four walls personally. There are always moments, perhaps just seconds when the clouds lift and light comes through on the horizon that reminds you that you are just spec on this planet and your time here if you’re really, really, really lucky will count for something. And the rest of the time, just sit back, take a deep breath and be grateful you at least have a shot at the brass ring.
Photo captured by D3x, 70-200VR2 on a very wet slope in AK
Aug 19, 2010 | Landscape Photography
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With the boat in the water, we headed back to camp to grab our gear to head out. You look up on the slope on Slope Mtn (name isn’t on a map) to that sunny patch, those bare rock outcroppings is where we were to spend the day. The 700′ vertical climb in less than 3/4 of a mile was simply brutal for me. If that wasn’t bad enough with the 600mm/D3x on my shoulder going up that loose shale, the rain made it official. It was a bitch of a climb for this old man!
This would be the last time we would see the face of Slope Mtn for two days! The biologists flew up the mtn just as nimbly as our quarry with Jake right behind them. Then for the next five hours, Jake & I sat in the damp fog and rain, out in the open on that slope looking at rocks. Our quarry requires sun and we surely had none. So wet and sore, we worked our way back down the slope wondering if we had traveled ten hours up the Haul Road for nothing.
Photo captured by D3x, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Aug 18, 2010 | Landscape Photography
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Well, it does make coming down a whole lot faster and definitely a whole lot more fun, but that’s not why. The Arctic is covered by ribbons of creeks and rivers flowing fast and deep in many places. There’s one at the base of the mtn we’re going to climb so to get to that mtn, we need a boat to cross the creek. Actually, there were three boats in the back of that truck and a whole lot more. But this is just another good example of why I always work with biologists. What seems like a minor detail is in reality a biggie because without that boat, we weren’t getting to the mtn and our project. The details of planning from tent to pad to gear to just getting from point A to B are all so important to the success of a single click!
Photo captured by D3x, 18AF on Lexar UDMA digital film
Aug 18, 2010 | Landscape Photography
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This is the scene the next morning when we awoke. Typical Alaska fall skies, even though it’s August, they are gray if not falling on you. Knowing this, the one smart thing I did was take our bigger 4 men Kelty backpacking tent. The other tent is Jake’s two men. I took the larger tent because knowing it would be wet, I wanted space to hang and get clothes dry. Also need to have all gear in the tent and I wanted space to work. You can see the large Pelican we shipped up to AK, it contained the 200-400s, tents and other misc gear. Once thing new this trip were the new Therm-a-rest NeoAir pads. My old Therm-a-rest which is 28yrs old and still works great has one issue, a big issue when you camp by plane. And that is it takes up a whole lot of space! Well the new NeoAir rolls up smaller than a water bottle and inflates to nearly four inches tall! Jake & I didn’t think that once we used it, we could roll it up to the same small size but low and behold, we could and it did. Great find, thanks Kevin!
The other thing you might notice is the orange cord going around the tents. That’s an electric bear fence the biologists wanted to test since it was brand new. Working as we were and as the biologists do all over Alaska, these things have become quite popular and many swear by them. Even though there were no bears anywhere near us, it went up anyways. Was it tested you ask? Only by us silly humans who wanted to see if two D batteries actually but out any zap. It was like Homer, we couldn’t stop touching it and going ow, ow, ow, ow.
And that mountain behind you, that’s what we would be climbing shortly.
Photo captured by D3x, 18AF on Lexar UDMA digital film
Aug 18, 2010 | Landscape Photography
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I’ve received a whole bunch of correspondence asking where on the North Slope did I do to photograph Grizzly Bears. While they are there as you can see here, they are not really common or plentiful. Furthermore, they are interior bears and other than perhaps one or two prime Blueberry patches (and man where they good, did some grazing ourselves), interior bears don’t gather like the coastal griz do at salmon strong holds. Nope, I wasn’t up on the North Slope and in the Arctic for photograph Grizzly or Polar Bears. What we were working on? Ah, not yet, still gotta work up to it.
As far as this little family group, they were on the south side of Atigun Pass eating berries when we came up on them. Eagle eye Jake saw them on his side of the truck (everything was on his side) and brought everything to a halt. This photo was made through the truck cab, around the other two guys in the back seat to the bears. You could tell we were all a little jaded because after asking out loud a couple of biological questions and making some other comments, we drove off to let the bears munch away. Don’t get me wrong, darn cool to see but it wasn’t what we were after and still has a ways to drive. It does show though that even on such a long drive as the Haul Road, traveling with a camera and lens in your lap and ready to go is a must to make the most of every opportunity!
Photo captured by D3x, 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film.
