Why bother?

Sometimes San asks me why I bother to sit with Photoshop on some pictures..

See the original of this photo here..

Do you see that "Kebab me haddi" in the background? Well, he happened to be a nice guy, but as far as this picture was concerned he was an unwanted artifact. It was freezing out there, what with the glacier on one side and high speed winds on the other side. My subjects were literally 4 feet away and my zoom was at 17mm  to get them and the scenery in the frame. Simply could not get an angle where I could cut out the nice gentleman but my wife and daughter were flashing smiles at me and it would be criminal negligence if I did not click away!

Photoshop comes to the rescue. See the final picture!

Using the texture of the mountain and floating ice on another part of the picture, cleaned him out of the frame. On the one hand, yes! it is photo manipulation but on the one hand, I have something worth putting in our album!

Thank you Adobe for giving me the wisdom to know that we can always change things in "post-production"!

Flying by Denali

We are an equal opportunity family, at least when blog photos are concerned.

The last post saw the little one all happy to be airborne. This one has Jr. aka style missy on the plane.

We spent a wonderful two days at the Grande Denali Lodge which was an architectural marvel in itself. It is on a hill and the windy gravel road that leads up to it is apparently the third highest road in Alaska (or close to it)!

The views from the hotel were spectacular and the service was great. The kids loved the place. There were pick up services for the air taxi and to other places there from the hotel door which was great! 

If the views from the lobby and rooms were great, the views on the Fly Denali plane were mind blowing!

Here are the last few shots taken as we flew back from seeing Denali mountain up close towards Haley.

If you are going with small kids on this 8 seater plane.. remember this! There is NO restroom on an 8 seater plane. You get a bucket. The sight of the bucket is enough to deter any kid from thinking about going.. The bucket officially beats "think of daisies" as the pee pee restrainer!

That one looks hazy but the large size image shows up much better than this compressed jpg on this website.. 

On our way back the sun did his magic by giving us some special effects. We were going through clouds and that helped!

Have not gotten around to editing the images from the ground trip through the National park by bus.. 

On this trip we travelled by plane, boat, bus, car... bike, horse and dog-sled were other options, but the Homestead tour where we get to see the sled dogs being trained was vetoed against the better wishes of Jr. and the little one.. we know how it goes. . . first it is a request to see huskie puppies and before you know it the puppy lobby in the house has a major advantage and we are back to discussing why we will not have dogs in the house!

Next, bus tour pictures..

Denali by Air

We got a chance to fly on a Talkeetna Aeroservices (Fly Denali) plane all around Denali National Preserve to get a "birds eye view" of the Big one aka Mt. McKinley aka Denali! 

It was unbelievable. This mountain is 20000+ feet high and we got some majestic views when the clouds moved out. It was a great day to be on that little 8 seater plane.. The pilot, four of us and a Chinese family from Shanghai .. 

The little one had a bad cold and we decided not to go on the Glacier Landing tour. The fly by tour was amazing in itself. The pilot was patient and answered all of 200 or so questions the little one asked on the intercom type system..

think she was so excited by the intercom that she asked questions non-stop! They were all decent questions except for the one about the Ocean and the Pilot went "there is no ocean here!" .. think she mistook the blue yonder for "ocean" having done too many coastal trips..

A few photographs from the fly by trip..

That was the big one! The one in the photograph below is a peak that is framed in the back by the big one!

Everyone got sunglasses to protect their eyes from the light reflecting off all the snow. I did not wear it because of the logistics of taking pictures. Big mistake! After we landed, my eyes were sore for some time..

While we flew by this section which was a valley with an ice river running through it aka Glacier, thought of getting a HDR shot.. 

Was not expecting it to come out as the plane was moving fast.. but the idea worked. Went for a fast shutter speed, f/22 and high enough ISO to support the fast shutter speed. Got three images and merged them together (shown below).. You do get the detail in the shadow and the highlights on the HDR. In spite of the image having pretty much a black and white feel to it, the HDR worked! Cropped off 20% of my border, thanks to the movement but still happy with the end result!

On our way back..

Another HDR image of same location as we flew away from the Glacier..

The 17-40mm lens came in very handy for this trip. Was able to capture wide panoramas from an airplane window! 

More later..

Glaciers, Cliff faces and cloud covered mountains..

Well, someday I will sit down and write a book about the drive from Anchorage to Seward, but today will leave  you with select pictures. . 

The railroad goes parallel to the highway and close to the water edge. Next time we will definitely go by rail on this same route. Folks we met who had come to Seward on the train said that they stop the train every now and then when any whale sightings happen! 

Apparently the purchase of Alaska from Russia for less than 8 Million dollars way in those days was called the "Seward folly" as people of that day thought "what a waste of good money to buy a land so desolate just because it has a few natural resources".

The place below reminded me of Jurassic Park. Apparently the 9+ earthquake that wiped out Seward in the sixties, originated here and triggered a massive tsunami! Time does heal things.. the place was teeeeeeming with life.

Mr. Seward, I am glad you bought that land and made most of it National parks and sincerely hope that the money minded politicians of today don't sell this back to Russia for a few million again in return for crude. 

The glaciers were a sight to behold. The boat crew fished out a few ice chunks and I got to taste Glacial ice water. Don't know why Global warming so difficult to comprehend for most Americans. What is the loss of a glacier or two, if you are never going to see them in your lifetime?! 

We saw this one break off a huge piece and crash into the water with a thundering sound right in front of our eyes.

Tried to take a few HDR shots of the glacier by stabilizing camera on Boat's side rail. It works as long as the boat is not moving too fast and you are set to a fast shutter speed, high ISO and f >14 (just a tip!).

 

After seeing the Glaciers, the boat took us to one last spot. The captain gave it a lot of hype as a potential "National Geographic Moment". In order to be ready for this I asked one of the crew, what is he talking about and the answer was "he is going to show you a place where Puffins nest on the rock face. It is a rare sight!".  If you have been photographing all day switching lenses back and forth on a moving boat where you can't feel your hands anymore in the cold, what would you do? I switched to the long 400x setup to catch a puffin or two on a rock, given a puffin is a small bird. 

Was totally not prepared for the beautiful scenery that unfolded in an area called the "spires". By the time I switched to a wide angle the boat had moved into the spires. Was hoping he would go back the same way he came, but nope. Ended up on the other side of the boat. Definitely going back to see them at close range on the next trip.

It was indeed a National Georgaphic moment! 

Kenai Fjords National Park

Our first National park visit in Alaska was the Kenai Fjords. We drove for more than 2 hours along AK1 which reminded us a lot of the drive through crescent lake in Olympic National park in Washington..

There is a slough here as the rivers get into the bay and deposit the silt, which happens to be paradise for birds and fishermen as they work on getting as many fish as they possibly can!

The water was freezing cold (you can see the ice on the surface at places) and we have guys with boots in thigh deep water with nets trying to compete with the birds. Truly amazing sight to watch!

Once we reached the park, we went on a cruise to see the Glaciers. Enroute to the Glaciers (the boat ride was 6 hours!) we saw everythign from Bald eagles, golden eagles, seals of different types, whales of different types, bears clawing on the icy slopes trying to get higher, birds by the hundreds of thousands creating a cacophony of unprecedented proportions, and the list goes on and on! 

It was very cold outside and after the first thirty minutes, could not feel my fingers on the shutter release. So was glad to get any pictures given I could not dial in the other knobs like I usually do! Don't think gloves would have made it any better. So my appreciation for those guys who shoot documentaries on snow leopards in the himalays went up 10000%!

Here are some of the Fauna shots...

 

That was no fluke.. Had clicked away trying to track them with the 200mm plus 2x extender all the way at 400x on a moving boat. The rest of the crowd on the boat was busy waiting for a humpback whale to breach on the other side as the whale made circles of bubbles trying to trap food into a bubble net while I was alone on the other side watching the eagles! I did get to see the whale come out and feed as with many other whales..

 

They are very smart the way they hunt in groups for their food. It is a treat to watch them run circles around the fish and finally close in when the circle is small enough. The birds are smarter. They dive into the water and take a big cut just before the whales close in. The bonus for us? We know where the whales are going to surface by watching the birds..

We have gone whale watching in many places but never have we seen so many whales in action so close by like this park! 

Did I mention the seals and birds that were creating quite a ruckus? Well, the rules prohibit the boats from going too close to the them. Also the rock faces underneath the boat (you can see images the captain shows on a monitor) are jagged and projecting out and it is not safe to go too close to the rocks!

The big 9+ scale earthquake that pretty much wiped out the area apparently was epicentered at Prince William Sound, the place where we saw the zillion birds and seals. This place was amazing and pristine in its beauty that it took our breath away! The sub zero winds helped with that task as well..

 

We also saw this black bear which had just come out of hibernating and was clawing away at a rock face trying to get up there on ice and wet rock. Just imagine.. you have just been sleeping for six plus months and are hungry, you come out of your den and realize you are disoriented, chose a rock face for a long sleep and have to make it out to find food and you have a bunch of tourists cliking away at you. . . no wonder they have rules for minimum distance..

When we came back from the glacier it was heart warming to watch the big guy who had made it past the ice field and into more steep rocks where he seemed more comfortable..

The scenery pictures are yet to be worked on. When I go back and look at those pictures, somehow there is a longing to just stop everything and go back there.. someday, someday... we will get to spend an entire summer in Alaska.. Just San, me, some hot Chai and no schedules to meet, no planes to catch anywhere.. 

It could happen...anything can happen!