The weather has been variable to the extreme here the past week. First we had 4 inches of snow, then the temperature plummeted to single digits for a day, then it rose to just below freezing. That brought freezing rain, then rain, then snow, then freezing rain again, all in the same day. Yesterday the winds scoured the the hillside, gusting around 50mph, and literally stopping me in my tracks more than once. Today, it’s clear and beautiful, and happily well below freezing (everything gets harder here when it’s above freezing, until summer arrives for good).

What we’re left with is a thin crust of ice over about a foot of soft snow. Below that, it’s several feet of solid snow pack. Later today, I’m going to shoot some video of Ashlee fetching a ball on top of the ice crust, which is unbelievably hilarious, and I’ll post it here.

This morning, however, I broke my self-imposed moratorium on sunrise pictures, because: 1. I have a new camera to try out, and 2. the ice crust is reflective.

Photography Photography, Sunrise

I’ve started taking pictures again, after a couple weeks off. There have been too many good scenes to resist!

First, a moonset and sunrise. Both of these images were created using an HDR plugin for Aperture, made by HDRsoft. I take multiple exposures of the same scene, and use the plugin to combine them into one superphoto, and then tweak the settings until I get a satisfactory image.

Before sunrise, the crescent moon was hanging over the mountains, surrounded by purple sky. This photo consists of 3 separate exposures.

Then, the sunrise began. This photo was made from 6 separate exposures.

It was foggy most of the day Wednesday, and the resulting moisture froze overnight, leaving a coating of ice over everything.

As I was preparing to feed the dogs last night, the sky lit up with one of the most amazing sunsets I’ve seen here. We’re on the downward slope of an east-facing hill, so we missed the full effect, but here’s what I could capture.

Too bad we don’t have a more scenic foreground, but it’ll do for now.

Photography Alaska, Ice, Photography, Sunrise, Sunset

One of the benefits of having the sun move more horizontally than vertically during the winter is the length of our sunrises and sunsets. While we currently may only have 5 hours of actual sun, the rising and setting takes hours. Yesterday morning, the sky started turning colors around 9:15. I successfully ignored the temptation to get my camera, because I’ve captured a number of sunrises already.

Around 10:00, I looked up and saw one of the mountain peaks had horns. A strong wind must have been blowing, and snow was shooting off the twin peaks into the sky.

So I ran and setup my camera. First, I used the 105mm.

Then, I got out my big 500mm Reflex lens. It looks like a can of stew, and has a big mirror in it (like a reflex telescope). It’s also manual focus, with a fixed f8 aperture, and a focal plane about the thickness of a piece of paper. Basically, it’s a pain to focus correctly, especially at low light.

Still, this one (of about 30 shots) seems to have turned out sort of sharp.

Another 30 minutes of work, and then I was back taking pictures. I wanted to capture a panoramic of the scene, so here you go.

When the sun finally showed its face, it was already 11:00. That’s almost 2 hours of sunrise action! Sunset seems to go on forever as well, but a big hill blocks most of that from view.

Today, even the mountains were covered in clouds, so the sunrise was completely obscured.

In other news, I’m about halfway through creating the photography section of the main Bigwoofs site, where I’ll be able to sell prints directly to you, via Paypal or money order/check. This also means I’ll be able to sign any prints, the lack of which is one of the drawbacks to buying from American Frame, I gather? If I’ve posted anything you might be interested in potentially purchasing, leave me a comment or shoot me an email and I’ll make sure to put it in the store. Even if you don’t actually ever purchase anything, I’d like to know what might be salable!

Photography, Site Alaska, Photography, Sunrise

Today, I hurt. Inside, I’m happy that Obama is going to be our next president, but my body has been taking a beating these last few days. Everything is frozen in place here, so moving anything (dog houses, wood pallets, dog food, even dog bowls and dog poop!) takes extra effort.

We’ve also started running dog teams with the ATV, so they can shake out the summer lazies, and start remembering how to take commands. Harnessing and hooking up 8 to 10 excited dogs is an intense experience. All of the dogs are eager to run, but some, especially the bigger ones, freak out and flail around while I’m trying to harness them and move them to the line. Add to that the need to navigate around other dogs, avoid holes, and remain upright on snow and ice while moving a rowdy, barking, 70lbs dog, and you get a pretty serious workout. I haven’t fallen yet, while moving a dog, and I’m definitely not looking forward to being dragged across the yard when I eventually do.

Once we head out, sometimes I get to play lead dog when they get confused at trail intersections, which involves jumping off the back of the ATV, running up ahead, showing the dogs which way to go, and then trying not to get run over as they turn and start running your way (ask Skippy about that one). Then I usually get to run alongside the ATV while Libby slows it down a little, then leap back on as she goes past, and reseat myself as we bump down the trail.

I need to stretch more, I think.

A few days ago, I found myself once again taking pictures of a beautiful sunrise. The sunsets here are just a spectacular (due to a recent volcanic eruption, I just learned!), but there’s a big hill in the way, and I’m usually too busy feeding dogs to find a good place to take pictures. Sunrise now happens around 9am, with sunset occurring right around 5pm.

Anyway, I took a few pictures and stitched them into a panoramic. The original file will print out to be 2′ x 6″! I’ve uploaded this one at 1900 pixels wide, so those of you with large screens can get a really good look.

I also took some video of the same sunrise, lest you disbelieve these colors existed. I sped it up from 1 hour to 20 seconds, for the attention-impaired.

Life, Photography, Video Alaska, Life, Photography, Sunrise, Video

I still don’t quite have this video camera down. Here’s my second attempt at capturing the sunrise, taken yesterday. This is a full hour condensed down to 1 minute.

This time I managed to get the camera setup before the sun appeared, but I left the Auto White Balance on. That accounts for the shifts from blue to yellow early in the video. I also need to learn how to manually set the exposure, so there won’t be jumps in brightness during the time lapse.

I like seeing the sun get high enough to hit the bay, and which starts forming clouds almost immediately. I’ll have to get a closeup of that later on.

Video Alaska, Sunrise, Video