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Breaching, Humpback Whale, Southeast Alaska – Image 2797

Most humpback whales in northern Southeast Alaska start migrating to Hawaii at the end of summer and through early winter. There are strong populations of humpback whales in Seymour Canal in November and December, but almost all of them eventually leave for southern climes. Whale breaches can be tough to photograph because the first breach usually comes out of nowhere and are totally unpredicted. What a photographer has to remember is that more likely than not, a whale that breaches once ...

Cover of the Southeast Alaska 2013 Calendar Alaska – Image 2796

I have been shooting calving glaciers for over 32 years and most of the images just do not work. It is terribly frustrating bearing witness one of the amazing powers of nature and not being able to translate that moment to a still image. In person the sight and sounds are totally mind blowing but when frozen in a still frame the image looks static. I could not believe my good fortune when I arrived onboard the "MV Adventure Bound" (http://www.adventureboundalaska.com) at the Dawes Glacier ...

Cover of the Juneau Alaska 2013 Calendar – Image 2795

I shot this sunset over Juneau from Spaulding Meadows in January. The temperature was hovering around 0 degrees F with a slight breeze. Although not very cold by Alaska standards, it was coldenough to be sapping my camera batteries, gumming up the works and freezing my fingers. Some might say that I over saturated the color in the sky, but in fact the sky color really looked like thisreproduction. This photo was taken well after the sunset and just before the sunset turns to twilight. To ...

Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska – Image 2794

In the past 34 years, I have literally shot tens of thousands of images of the Mendenhall Glacier, and this one is my favorite image. It was shot on the westside of the lake across from the visitors center. I have only seen the water right in front of the glacier go mirror calm once. Even on the calmest days, the 13-mile long glacier produces an ever so slight breeze that keeps the surface of the lake from mirroring up. The rock peninsula in the front of the glacier on the left hand side ...

Harbor Mountain, Sitka, Alaska – Image 2793

I went to the top of Harbor Mountain in Sitka in hopes of spending the night to shoot northern lights. There is a great website managed by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks that gives viewers a northern light forecast (http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast). According to the forecast, the probability of northern lights was high. The northern lights never appeared, and I hiked down the mountain at 3am guided by the light from my headlamp. While waiting ...

Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska – Image 2792

The autumn (mid-September through October) in Juneau is usually very wet with tons of rain. Once in a while the area will experience a clear day or even a semi-dry fall. When this happens, the fall foliage in and around the Mendenhall Glacier can be spectacular. To do this shoot, I spent the day out on the Mendenhall Lake in my kayak waiting and watching for when the lake went mirror calm. I found this image on the west side of the lake. I was in my kayak for eight hours ...

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“As a kid in Buffalo, New York, I always wondered what it would be like to encounter a whale,” says Mark Kelley. Learn more about Mark...