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Spent two magical weeks in Alaksa on a trip with Marc Adamus. While his processing style can be polarizing for some, it is difficult to argue that his tours are not some of the most unique in the business. Constructive critique is most welcome.
#1 Calving Iceberg at the Le Conte Glacier. Full disclosure - an image like this is nearly impossible to capture in a single frame, there is just too much going on at disparate scales. This is a blend of 4 frames captured within 5s of each other - one for the berg, one for the wave, and 2 for the birds. They were flying around but I needed to pick out their most photogenic moments and place them strategically within the frame. This may be too much PP for some, but I saw it all with my eyes within a few seconds, which makes it fair game by my standards, particularly since I am openly stating what is going on.
#2 Iceberg pow-wow
#3 Moss Champions overlooking a glacier in the Juneau icefield, from a spectacular campsite on the edge of the glacier. When the chopper pilot said we are landing there I couldn't see anything but a rock field. But there was a small level patch there, barely enough for the chopper to land
#4 Pyramid peak (officially unnamed) on a particularly spectacular morning
#5 Your truly during the same morning. h/t to Marc for the image
#6 Drone image above the icefield
#7 Merging of the glaciers (drone)
#8 Rarefied air (drone) Capturing this image was nerve-racking because it required draining the drone battery down to nothing. When I landed the drone it was showing 2% battery remaining
#9 On the border of AK and BC, down a valley that has several thousand denivelation BELOW the icefield above it. The chopper drop down there was something else
#10 Looking down the same valley
#11 The Juneau icefield (heli)
#12 Side view of the Devil's Thumb (#heli)
#13 An unusual black glacier on an overcast afternoon (heli)
#14 The Oasis (heli)
#15 Eye of Sauron (top down detail of the glacier from a heli)
#16 I called this one "The Thumb Traverse", because it is so reminiscent of the Fitzroy Traverse. The peak on the right is Devli's Thumb. Alas the weather was not cooperating so I had to turn this one into a (semi) B&W
#17 The mountains above the LeConte glacier (drone)
#18 Pigmy pines... at least this is what I call them
#19 and last but not least the Garden of Earthly Delights - a top down view of the drainage of a river during low tide
Phenomenal shots, that must have been a great experience! Voted.
It's comical irony to me now that I love hiking to glaciers and glacially carved landscapes, and my first duty station 20 years ago was Alaska, when I had no money and was living in the barracks and had no chance at all to see this kind of stuff.
Monika C wrote:
What a great collection -- a very worthwhile trip!
There is a fair amount of WA distortion in #3, 9 & 10 that I would be very tempted to rectify.
Thank you for the suggestion. All these were focus stacks from extreme closeups with an 11mm lens. In #3 and #9 the lens was close enough that even with focus stacking I could not get the closest petals in focus. And even a few inches back would have substantiallly changed the appearance of the comp by making the petals look much smaller. I actually like the WA distortion in these types of comps, but will play with PTGui and see what Income up with.
dbehrens wrote:
Wow! These are really good! And I'd say that the gamble you took on #8 paid off big time!
If I was by myself I probably would not have had the guts to play it that close with a $3k drone. Marc was standing behind me, barking orders like a drill sergeant when the drone was at 30%, attempting to initiate RTH with a 10 minute return flight that included a descent of over 1000m
"do not allow this thing to return home before you hit 20%, I repeat, DO NOT allow it to return home. I will buy you a new drone if it crashes because the battery runs out".
And then on the way home the drone constantly insisted on an emergency landing due to low battery and you have to manually override the auto pilot. Did I say his trips are always an experience? Wish I had a lot more money and vacation time to send his way.
Thanks for sharing. Based on the photos, it was an exceptional trip. The photos taken from the helicopter, was it an open door helicopter or did you use a polarizer and shot through the window?
live2huntelk wrote:
Thanks for sharing. Based on the photos, it was an exceptional trip. The photos taken from the helicopter, was it an open door helicopter or did you use a polarizer and shot through the window?
With Marc it is doors off all the time unless there is an overarching reason to have the doors on. The image below is from a small helicopter that has landed near a sharp peak in Alaska in January. The surface air temperature was around -20F. As you can see from the image, we flew doors off.
I didn't make the connection until reading the included story (I tend to view images before reading the rest), but there certainly is a Marc Adamus-esque feel to a few of these. Which is a high compliment! What an amazing experience and an amazing set of images to return with. Any more waiting in the wings to share?
JWRisinger wrote:
I didn't make the connection until reading the included story (I tend to view images before reading the rest), but there certainly is a Marc Adamus-esque feel to a few of these. Which is a high compliment! What an amazing experience and an amazing set of images to return with. Any more waiting in the wings to share?
This is my "past year" folder. At this time all except a handful of images from the local deserts are from AK. There are already half a dozen or so images there that were not included in this post for brevity's sake. I have a decent number of drone images to still go through and will be posting at the above link over the coming month or so.
The link above also has much larger size images than what is posted to this thread, as large as 2400x1600 for those with monitors large enough to accommodate.
Fantastic images! Thanks for the full disclosure on the first - excellent work and I agree that blending a series shos takent so close together like that is totally fair. I would tilt that one slightly down to the right.
Your story about the drone flight was nerve wracking! I've crashed a couple in my time, and don't intend to loose my new MP4, so I'm much more conservative in my old age! I would have ignored Marc.
