Aug 17, 2010 | Landscape Photography
Seriously, when we pulled off the Haul Road and headed to the base of Slope Mtn which would be our home for the week, this is what greeted us as we stepped out of the truck. Now you could take this in one of three ways.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP5455.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
The romantic way is that the rainbow is a sign of great things to come. Reality is that it’s fall on the North Slope and it always rains. Or that even if it does rain, there is something the end of the storm worth weathering the storm for. You’ll just have to hang around to see what this omen comes to mean for us.
Photo captured D3x, 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Aug 17, 2010 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP5434.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
If you’ve never been there and let’s face it, most of the sane planet hasn’t been, then you wouldn’t know just what a vast expanse it is above the Arctic Circle. Bringing back the immensity of the North Slope in a thumbnail on a blog is a challenge. Here’s my first attempt. To the right you see a little line heading off over the horizon. That’s the Alaska Pipeline, a pipe ten foot in diameter that is fifteen feet off the ground. If you get out your binoculars out and look on the horizon on the left, there’s a big rig moving up the highway. And lost behind those wicked clouds is the Brooks range. And this is just a ten mile vista of the landscape. Yeah, it’s just that huge!
Photo captured by D3x, 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Aug 17, 2010 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP5392.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
As Jake posted, we ventured north of the Arctic Circle this trip. The was Jake’s first but not last time to the far north. The Haul Road also known as the Dalton Highway is known by many now because of the History Channel’s series Ice Road Truckers. Our trip coincided with the start of fall on the North Slope and while there is no ice on the road, the truckers are still present. And just like our own home town where road work is crammed into the short summer season, the same is done on the Haul Road. So if our truck up the road wasn’t going to be long enough, we were stuck in a couple of construction zone stops. This is at the base of the infamous Atigun Pass north bound. You can see the road take off up the hill behind the trucks. Notice how steep that road is? The engineering of the Haul Road is amazing and that in itself can keep the mind busy while you truck up the road. Let the mind get beyond the road and the landscape easily lets you come up with another meaning for the Haul Road.
Photo captured by D3x, 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
PS…take a note of the road bed. Just as Jake mentioned, it’s a blatter breaker!
Aug 17, 2010 | B&W Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP5386.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
I don’t think there’s a means of travel to a project I’ve not taken at this in in time, from the Fuji Blimp to Navy PT Boat and each have their pluses and minuses. The one means of travel though that I use the vast majority of time is a truck. Our adventure this time to the far north was no different. The 10 hour drive up the Haul Road, yeah, you read that right, the 10 hour drive up the Haul Road scares of many as it should. This is not the first time for me and nowhere the last and I love each and every time I cruise this highway of imagination. What’s the secret or art of traveling in the back seat of a F350 for ten hours? It’s to simply look out the window and take it all in.
Photo captured by D3x, 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Aug 16, 2010 | Landscape Photography
OK, enough of the aviation and back to what I do, wildlife. Then why the landscape photo? We’re just back (Jake & I) from the Arctic where we were continuing work on a project. Not that I’m going to put it all forth here on the blog, I do want to share some of it through this mass media. While many are still enjoying summer, in the Arctic fall is more than coming with cool temps, fall color and storms lining up for winter.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP5408.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
The beauty of this stark landscape is just stunning. The God beams as they play on the landscape in themselves a subject of a lifetime Arctic travel. Any project in the Arctic first requires a love for this landscape, it’s cultures, its rules and its wildlife. It is definitely not the place for weekend warriors. This is one big ass place that I hope to bring to ya this week.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP1619.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
Photos captured by D3x, 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Jul 23, 2010 | Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/RsW0408.swf, 404, 600 [/swf]
Just simply got too much cookin to be bloggin…I’ll be back shortly though!
