Air to air photography is a favorite subject of mine and this was a great photo shoot of Mike McCann flying his classic 1933 Stinson JR. SR through the Kenai Mountains, Alaska in mid October. Thanks to Mark Munro and Mike Neese for making this photo shoot possible. Below area few more images of the Stinson from this flight.
Finally! After several months without a single surf session, I woke this morning to a strong west wind that put some messy, but precious, swells on the beach in my hometown. The weather patterns in the summer here prevent waves from building where we need them, so despite the allure of surfing when the air is above freezing we rarely get the chance in my hometown. Come fall, the weather patterns change and out come the surfboards.
The photo above is actually from a couple years ago. Move the snow line up the mountains a thousand feet and that’s what it was like at the surf break today. I can’t show you exactly because I left the camera in the car. The waves weren’t particularly photogenic and the potential images are not nearly as exciting as the mid-winter shots. Don’t get me wrong, the scenery is still stunning with 4,000ft mountains rising out of the ocean and fresh snow on their peaks. But, I have to work this balance between surfing and photographing. When the waves are poor and the weather not extreme I figure surfing has a bigger reward than taking some mediocre photos.
If you want the real winter surfing see this post and photos of winter surfing in Alaska. Or you can go straight to an online gallery of Alaska surf photos.
UPDATE 11/27/08: I’ve launched a little hobby blog for sharing more session reports, location info, photos and stories about surfing in Alaska. Check it out here - www.SurfAlaska.net
One of my favorite things about Alaska is the endless miles of uninhabited and mostly undisturbed coastline. With nearly 34,000 miles (54,720 km) of tidal shoreline, Alaska has more beaches to collect trash than all the other states in the U.S. combined! This week I’ve been helping the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies inspire Alaskans to take care of our beaches by taking part in CoastWalk. Here is a snippet from the press release:
“The Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies celebrates the 24th year of the Kachemak Bay CoastWalk, an annual community event, that will run from September 11-30. The focus on this year’s event will be to encourage personal commitments to a coastal CODE developed by the Alaska Brewing Company to promote the health of the Pacific Ocean and its coastline. The CODE stands for “A Clean Ocean Depends on Everyone.—
And this explains what the CoastWalks are about:
“CoastWalk is a unique community science and stewardship project with a three part mission to: build community awareness of the importance of our local marine habitats, gather data to detect long-term trends in biodiversity, and to observe the effects of human impacts on our shore. CoastWalk volunteers select a stretch of the shoreline to walk, collect survey information about natural changes and human impacts, and clean up trash.”
The Kachemak CoastWalk program is possible with support from NOAA Community-based
Marine Debris Clean-up and Prevention Grant Program and the Ocean Foundation’s Coastal CODE Fund created in partnership with the Alaskan Brewing Company.
The Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies gave me the opportunity to present with them in local schools and at the CoastWalk kickoff event. The images I showed from Alaska’s coastlines highlighted the rugged beauty and diversity, as well as the wildlife and people that depend on them. I discussed the importance of the coastal environment to wildlife and our tourism and fishing economy. But that’s not all, a clean beach is also the place to go for some great recreation – surfing, kitesurfing, kayaking, sailing, fishing, horseback riding, running, yoga, etc..
The local newspapers printed articles prior to CoastWalk and my presentations if you’re interested in reading more.
Homer News: Surfer-photographer to speak at CoastWalk kick-of
Homer Tribune: CoastWalk 2008 – Mother ocean calls to all who care
Today the McNeil Canyon Elementary School was out in the rain picking up trash and taking notes on what they saw. Walking around in the rain doing schoolwork and picking up trash might not sound very fun, but judging from all the smiles I saw, everyone was having a great time and feeling proud of the work they were doing. It’s very encouraging to see kids learning to be stewards of our environment. I think this willingness to cleanup another person’s mess with a smile is very significant.
Here are a few photos from today’s CoastWalk:
Thanks to everyone who has, and will, do their part to clean up our beaches and keep them that way, I appreciate your efforts.
In my pursuit of the ideal aerial photography platform I’m selling my ultralight and moving to a paramotor. As a first step in this transition I was grateful for an opportunity to observe a maneuvers training workshop led by the amazing paraglider/paramotorer/instructor Chris Santacroce. Phil Smith of Midnight sun paragliding has been hosting Chris in Alaska for several years to teach workshops to eager Alaskan paraglider pilots.
From an outsiders view the weekend basically went like this: The student lays out his paraglider on the beach of a lake and hooks himself in between the wing and a boat that takes off across the lake away from shore. The student starts running as he’s drug towards the water, the paraglider wing inflates and flys up over his head and viola! the paraglider starts climbing and lifts the smiling pilot up over the lake. As the boat circles the lake letting out more and more line the paraglider keeps going higher and higher until roughly 2,000ft when the pilot releases the tow line and the real fun begins.
Chris is layed back in a lawn chair squinting up at two little spots in the sky representing a paraglider wing and a person. The student has a walkie-talkie taped to his helmet so Chris can give directions. It was admittedly a little disconcerting to watch at first. Chris would say something like “OK, now pull on your left brake hard and lean into the turn, hold it, hold it, hold it . . . ” meanwhile the two little spots of a wing and body start spiraling towards the ground at a rapidly increasing speed. I could see that everyone was enjoying testing the limits of their paragliders with an expert eye and calm voice of experience ready to coach them out of any flailing, falling, twisting messes they might get into.
Before this weekend I had no idea that a paraglider could recover from such dire looking situations. It similtaneously made me more confident in this form of flight and made me hope I never find myself in an uncontrollable weather situation where the paragliders recovering abilities are required.
I’d like to put out a thank you to Phil Smith, Chris Santacroce and the rest of the paragliders for letting me hang out and learn about paragliding from some real experts. That wasn’t the last time you’ll see me.
Below are a few photos from the weekend. If you were involved in this weekend and have been waiting to see the photos a healthy selection is now online here.
If this subject interests you there is a bunch more photos online here.
The adventure started with a phone call last week from the World Wildife Fund – “Scott, can you be on Kodiak Island tonight for a flight to the Chukchi Sea?” Before I could think answered “Sure, what time?”
Slowly I learned the details of the assignment as I packed my bags. Nine polar bears had been sighted swimming in the Chukchi Sea many miles off Alaska’s Arctic coast. Now there was a rare opportunity to fly with the Coast Guard and polar bear biologists on a survey to see firsthand the polar bears plight as the sea ice they depend on melts away beneath them. This was an impressive example of agency cooperation amongst the US Coast Guard, University of Alaska, US geological survey and the World Wildlife Fund. Steve Rychetnik, videographer with Sprocketheads, and myself were brought along to document the effort.
Our team met in Kodiak, home of the Alaska Coast Guard Air Station. Next morning we were at the base meeting the flight crew and discussing the plan as we boarded a monstrous 4 engine C-130 rescue airplane that would take us over 1,000 miles North, stopping in Fairbanks for fuel, then onward to Barrow to pickup additional Coast Guard personnel. We left Barrow and flew out over the Chukchi Sea and spent five and half hours looking amongst ice floes for the signs of life. We would fly for 12 hours total before landing in Fairbanks later the same evening.
Finding a white bear amongst an ocean of white ice floes while flying at 200mph turned out to be a challenge. Thankfully the flight crew let Steve and I shoot out an open side door in the back of the plane. Unfortunately, from that position we had no communication with the rest of the crew who where helping each other find the bears by talking through their headsets. In the roughly five hours of searching, five bears where spotted. Through a stroke of good fortune I managed to snap a few shots of one swimming bear. Not exactly the closeup photo I was dreaming of, but considering the challenge of spotting and photographing the bear in the 2-3 seconds that it was visible out the door, I’m grateful for what I did get. The take home lesson was that next time I’ll make sure I can at least hear what the pilot and rest of the crew are saying.
The greater story behind this mission is the fact that the sea ice these bears depend on for food and habitat is melting. The distance between the year round ice pack and land is growing rapidly and the amount of suitable broken up ice floes between is also diminishing as the water temps rise.
You can hear a great NPR interview here with Margaret Williams, Director for WWF’s Alaska office. Also from WWF, here is a news release about the initial bears spotted that was the big motivator for making this trip happen.
Below are a few photos from the trip. You can see more photos from the adventure online here.
Once again, you can see more photos in my stock archive here.
For my fellow photo enthusiasts: Remember that when shooting aerials it’s very important to have communication with the pilot, especially when trying to photograph hard to find objects! I learned the C-130 is not an ideal air to land photo platform, despite the pilots doing everything they could to help. I wouldn’t hesitate to fly in one again, but my dream shot list might be a closer reflection of what’s realistically possible. The photographs were taken with both a Canon 1D mark III and Canon 5D, lenses ranged from a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS on the long end, to a Sigma 12-24mm for some wide interior shots. The back of the C-130 where I spent most my time is very dark and I appreciated the great high ISO performance of the relatively new 1DmIII camera for shooting portraits there. Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask in the comment box below.
Scott Dickerson photography | (907) 399-1262 | contact Scott
