Eagles - Alaskan style!

IPT

IPT

Active member
So I took my annual trip down to Homer, Ak, home of the "Eagle lady". For a change I had some stunning light! (it is usually drab and overcast) Also, since we have had this insane ever enduring sub-zero cold spell the landscape was covered in white with Hoar frost most of the trip. That made the drive amazing too. These are just two shots I emailed to some people. I'll post more after I process more. Basically I have mostly just deleted soft and out of focus shots, but I have found some stellar shots along the way. More to come.

portrait-1.jpg


Kenai river and hoar frost

Kenai.jpg
 
Very nice, very nice. I wish I had a good telephoto lens for when I was down in Homer, I could have gotten some amazing shots, but oh well, next time ;)

The sub zero weather has actually been pretty great for outside shooting, the sky is clear and bright!
 
He shoots! He scores!!

As much as I love eagles and the texture I can see in #1, the frosty #2 shot takes the beauty prize.
 
Hey recty - you know so many times I go down there and get images with the wing tips cut off, or feet out of the frame. I stuck with a wider lens this time. This is one of the few images I ahve that was taken with the 300mm, and it is cropped too. It was a full body shot.

Reef bass - thanks, yes, I really liked this one myself. I have a few others with a much wider persepective and the Hoar frost on some rocks but it just doesn't convey the same feel as this one.

As recty can attest, the bruttle cold is so muh more tolerable when your mulling around IN scenes like this!
 
Yeah, I was thinking of getting the 70-200mm next so I have some telephoto, but I might just go with the 100-400, it gets good reviews and I'd really like the zoom power.

The detail on your eagle is great, which lens was that? A 300mm prime?
 
Yes IPT, gorgeous scenery can distract one from mind numbing cold! For a while anyway...

I went to college in Vermont. The temp dropped to -15F one evening. That was cold enough for me. I didn't park my car that evening in an approved spot. Fortunately, campus security didn't do their rounds that evening. That's probably shorts and frisbee weather for you!

I visited your fair state in '75 I believe it was. Cruised up the panhandle (not that that is a representation of life in the great state of Alaska), spent a week in Mt. McKinley State Park (grizzlies are awesome!) and then for a week canoed down the Kobuk river north of the Arctic circle to the eskimo village of Kobuk where we were picked up by an unscheduled cargo flight as our bush pilot wouldn't fly because the "airport" (a once mowed clearing) was essentially snowed in (at the end of August).

The trip down the Kobuk was a beautiful experience. Thirsty? Just dip your cup from the river. Hungry? Throw any kind of lure and cook whatever you catch. Grayling are not only lovely fish, they are good eats!

Ah, happy times.
 
Happy times they are reefbass. I've only been up here a little over 6 years, from just outside of NYC none the less! When it snowed in Denali NP (McKinely) one July, tourists freaked out! I was "just" coming up here for a year or two....the place grows on you. -15 is cold, but with the right gear and frame of mind it's no biggie :)

5-1.jpg
 
My intention this year was to get more flight shots. As much as I love the portraits I have many of them and I was looking to up the challenge. The scenery on the ride home was a fringe benefit. It still amazes me that this is just a weekend road trip away.

1-3.jpg
 
I was born in NYC. My parents were med school students. My mom was in the midst of her finals when I decided it was time to make my entrance to the world. Yes, it all about frame of mind and attitude. Beautiful frost pic of that river too! I'd be the idiot standing at the edge of the ice casting something, catching fish and feeding / fending off bears. :p

Lovely composition with the river in the middle, frosty tree to the left and snow covered mountain to the right.

One of my strongest memories of the Kobuk canoe trip was coming across a homestead along the Kobuk which was built by a coupe of Wall Streeters who had had enough and decided to change their lives. And change they did, from Wall Street to a mud / sod "house" with a rack of salted fish drying and pack of dogs outside.
 
Wow! The lone eagle pic is a stunner! Awesomely composed. Sharply focused. Fabulous detail. You should make some money off that one. Hell, send me a print and I'll pay you!

Sometimes, for us "mainlanders", it's hard to realize that multiple balds will congregate in a single area, let alone pose for a shot all together!
 
Ok, I've come up with the A+ shot concept, instead of the mere "A" you posted of the lone bald. Get one of him carrying a fish payload and looking that awesome! Preferably with some native prey species. You know how those PETA types would freak if the bald were dining on say a spotted owl. :lol:
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14143540#post14143540 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reef Bass
Yeah, in my next life maybe. Now, in this life, where would I get my corals from???
Click to expand...

Liveaquaria like the rest of us up here (lol)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14143570#post14143570 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reef Bass
Ok, I've come up with the A+ shot concept, instead of the mere "A" you posted of the lone bald. Get one of him carrying a fish payload and looking that awesome! Preferably with some native prey species. You know how those PETA types would freak if the bald were dining on say a spotted owl. :lol:
Click to expand...

That would be sick, and I am always on the hunt for that shot :).

There was an interesting piece written several years ago about the "ethics" of wildlife photography. Apparently Audborn published an image of an owl capturing some pray. A reader noticed that it was a gerbil! The photographer tried to pawn it off on the mag hoping no one would notice I guess (LMAO).
 
wow- fantastic shots Louis. Nicely done. Im loving the lighting on the first especially. seems like you have the eagle shooting dialed in!:eek:

are you freehanding those again?
 
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