Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Pastel Dunes” by Valerie Millett. Location: Death Valley National Park, California.
“Looking small in Death Valley National Park’s badland formations,” describes Millett.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Autumn Grotto” by Harry Lichtman. Location: White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire.
“Using diagonal lines and the rule of thirds, I aligned important components of the scene such as the boulders and water flow to add interest and balance to the scene,” explains Lichtman. “This type of alignment is often done subconsciously after applying this concept over the years. Small changes in camera composition can radically change the viewer’s perspective, especially when using super wide-angle lenses.”
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Eagle Eyes” by David Francis. Location: Acadia National Park, Maine.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Mobius Milky Way” by Eric Grimm. Location: Alabama Hills, California.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
“I was with professional wildlife photographer Paul Goldstein,” explains photographer and wildlife and conservation lecturer Charles Kinsey. “We were searching for photographic subjects at Fortuna Bay in south Georgia. Suddenly, Paul spotted a couple of king penguins who were preening their backs simultaneously—right on the beach close to where we were standing. He immediately pointed at them and said sharply to me, ‘Charles, take that now!’ I had the chance for one shot only before one of the penguins raised its head.”
Canon EOS 450D, Tamron AF 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 XR Di VC LD Aspherical (IF) Macro. Exposure: 1/500 sec., ƒ/8, ISO 200.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Superstition Galaxy” by Gerry Groeber. Location: Superstition Mountains Arizona.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Greenland is an autonomous country that’s part of the Kingdom of Denmark and is considered the world’s largest island. To put its massive size into perspective, it’s larger than the state of Alaska and is over 1,600 miles from north to south. Despite the enormous area, only 57,000 people live there.
When people think of Greenland, they often visualize huge icebergs, an expansive ice sheet (second only to Antarctica in size) and lots of polar bears. However, in many coastal areas you’ll find deep fjords, jagged mountains and arctic tundra typical of the far north. This environment is perfect for outdoor enthusiasts looking to break their own trail and photograph in complete solitude.
Summer months are an excellent time to visit Greenland due to the mild temperatures and beautiful green valleys. In late August 2018, I led an adventure photography trip through the fjords and valleys in the area just outside Nanortalik. We sailed deep into the Tasermiut fjord, visited glaciers and climbed mountainsides to gain a bird’s eye view. Halfway through the trip, we hiked to the middle of a valley and camped beneath the incredible peak you see here.
On this particular morning, we were surrounded by fog for several hours, barely able to see 300 feet away. We decided to break camp and head for our next destination, but just before we left, the fog began to lift. We quickly ran to a spot close by that was filled with an abundance of arctic cotton.
Wanting to bring the viewer into the midst of the cotton balls, I set up my tripod as low as possible (around 4 inches off the ground). There was a strong breeze, so a fast shutter speed was necessary, and since my lens was very close to the cotton balls, I needed significant depth of field. Focusing manually on the nearest cotton ball, I used a 2-second delay to initiate the shutter, repeating with several additional focus points. I waited until the fog broke just enough to show the tip of the mountain and captured a shot for the sky and background.
Each exposure was reviewed afterward to ensure there was no motion blur in the foreground and that my highlights weren’t overexposed. The moment was fleeting, and just minutes later the entire valley of fog was swept away with the wind. We celebrated our good fortune and then began the hike toward our next incredible destination.
Although Greenland is very remote and difficult to travel in, it’s easily one of my favorite places for photography. The variety of landscapes, true wilderness experience and dynamic weather conditions all make it a world-class photography destination. OP
Nikon D810, Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Di VC USD at 15mm, Feisol CT-3442 tripod, Really Right Stuff BH-30 ballhead. Exposure: 1/200 sec., ƒ/16, ISO 320.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Magnum Opus” by Abe Blair. Location: Sierra Mountains, California.
“An unnamed peak in the Sierra Mountains light painted with a drone in the middle of the night with perfectly clear night skies,” describes Blair.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
I recently attended a concert. Howard Jones performed an acoustic set of his ’80s new wave tunes. Nick Beggs played a Chapman Stick and I was totally blown away with his musical prowess. Every aspect of his musicianship was spot on. The best word to describe it is tight. As photographers, every photo we make should be tight. Our photographic prowess and ability to compose our landscapes with great light and technical merit should blow away the viewers of our images.
How can we make this happen? How can we make our “listeners” take notice and want to spread the word of how great our “performance” was? In this two-part tip of the week, I’ll share tips and tricks so you can improve your landscape images.
When it comes to landscape photography, I’m a stout proponent that less is more, hence the name of this week’s Tip: KISS—Keep It Simple And Splendid. I want you to judiciously choose beneficial camera angles and be more selective about what lens to utilize. I want you to create images with more impact and have them stand out from pedestrian landscape photographs. I want you to consider the background. I want you to consider the foreground. I want you to notice distractions and modify the composition to eliminate them. Let’s make these things happen.
Scenics are most often made with wide angles, but wide angles take in a lot of the environment. Keep your compositions simple and splendid. Chisel away at the extraneous and reduce the elements to the basics. Move in close or zoom to a longer focal length. Use depth of field wisely. Stop down the lens to increase the range of focus or open up the aperture if you want a single sharp focal point when you create intimate landscapes to incorporate the KISS method.
Alternative ways to utilize the KISS method are to silhouette iconic shaped landforms against a sunrise or sunset sky. Get creative— if the wind is blowing and flowers in the field are moving, use a slow shutter speed and allow the colors to paint the sensor. Use light to your advantage depending on its angle, intensity and color. Incorporate the use of flash to add light to the foreground to make it more prominent. By no means are these the only ways to make your landscapes simple And splendid. And if the conditions allow, incorporate a number of the above strategies into a single photo.
Before you press the shutter the next time you head out to make landscapes at your favorite destination, remind yourself to check the entire viewfinder for distractions and keep all of these tips in the forefront of your mind to create simple and splendid images. Each time you think about them, you’ll be reminded of just how satisfying a KISS is.
Keep Everything Sharp
As with the large majority of scenics, it’s best to have foreground to infinity sharpness. To accomplish this, use a wide angle as they have more inherent depth of field. Combine the wide focal length with a small aperture as the more the lens is stopped down, depth of field increases. If you have quality lenses, don’t be afraid to stop the lens down to ƒ/22 to attain max depth of field.
Once upon a time, it was recommended that one avoids very small apertures as they created aberrations. The lenses today have improved to the point where this is no longer a concern. To ensure you get maximum DoF, place the focus point at the hyperlocal setting. If you’re not familiar with the term, there are charts all over the internet that can be accessed. To make life simple, an elementary way to utilize the hyperfocal setting is to place the focus point one third into the composition. By no means should it be placed in the foreground or at infinity.
Use Selective Focus
There are times when you want to draw the viewer’s eye to a single portion of the landscape and have everything else lack the same degree of sharpness. The reason for this is to attract the viewer’s eye to a dominant subject on a single plane. To create the effect, use a longer lens and set the aperture to its widest setting. Both of these strategies allow you to narrow the depth of field.
The accompanying image of the young evergreen offset against the falls was made at a medium focal length. I was lucky that it was offset against the falls at quite a distance. This allowed the tree to become the primary element. If I stopped the lens down to ƒ/22, it would have brought the background into sharp focus. I also placed it against the brightest part of the falls to create the most amount of separation.
Polarizer
A polarizer is every landscape photographer’s best friend and most used filter. It removes glare from reflective surfaces, which allows more color to be revealed. It creates more contrast between shadows and highlights when used at angles 90 degrees to the sun. It darkens a blue sky and makes clouds that are in the sky pop when used at angles of 90 degrees to the sun. Most landscape photographers use it for the latter.
In the accompanying image of the burgundy rocks and waterfall, I used a polarizer to demonstrate the fact that it helps remove glare. The water in this area had a huge spray radius. All the rocks in the image displayed a tremendous amount of reflections, bright spots and glare. I spun my polarizer to minimize these distractions, which helped enhance the saturation of color. Don’t overlook this underused capability of a polarizer.
Long Lens Landscapes
Most photographers don’t think “long lens” when it comes to landscapes. This is certainly valid, but as with everything in the art world, there are exceptions. Think about that gorgeous tree on the ridge line that stands out beautifully against the stormy sky. To show the mood of the scene, you want to get in close—long lens landscape! What about the iconic sea stack that lives in the Pacific with the morning light and rainbow just above it—long lens landscape. Don’t shy away from using a long lens to pull out landscape details. There’s a chance it may make the best shot of the day. In the image of morning mist and trees on the rock ledge, I used a focal length of 200mm to key into the swirling fog and rising mist from the cascade of water.
Shoot Landscapes From A Unique Angle
A tripod should most definitely be utilized for landscapes when shutter speeds are too slow for handholding. When you make a landscape, the ISO is low, a polarizer is on the lens and the aperture is stopped down. These three facts contribute to slow shutter speeds. To attain a sharp image at a slow shutter speed, the camera has to be stabilized—tripod to the rescue.
But that brings up a caveat if you make a photo from a unique angle. When a tripod is utilized, it’s natural to extend the legs and stand behind it at eye level. This makes it comfortable to use. The problem is that many landscapes images would be dramatically improved if they were shot from a low or different angle. Foregrounds would be more dominant and the photo would have more impact. Don’t fall victim to always shooting from an elevated tripod angle. In the image of the yuccas at White Sands, my tripod was very low to the ground to place an emphasis on the foreground and also lessen the difference in height between the foreground fronds and yuccas in the background.
Check next week’s tip for more ways to keep it simple and splendid.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Through the Window” by The Wicked Hunt. Location: Western Australia.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Denali in the Moonlight” by Amy Smith. Location: Denali National Park, Alaska.
“Over Labor Day weekend, we drove around Alaska and camped, just taking in the views as we went,” explains Smith. “One of the nights, we were able to stay in a friend’s cabin that was right on the edge of Denali National Park. Needless to say, the views were to die for. In the middle of the night, with nothing but the light of the full moon, we took in this moment. Mt. McKinley (Denali) and Mt. Foraker shining in the distance. My long exposure captured a falling star, amongst the millions of other stars and the Big Dipper looming above us. I will never forget that night.”
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Nikon Z 7, FTZ Mount Adapter with AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm F2.8G ED.
The Milky Way on the coast of the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick.
It might be hard to tell in a small online image, but the white dots in the largest pothole in the rocks closest to the lens are reflections of the stars.
This is one of those shots that had been a year in the making. The timing didn’t work out for me last year, but this year I got lucky with a clear night after some heavy rain and wind storms came through the Canadian Maritimes.
Technical Details
Camera and lens: Nikon Z 7 with FTZ lens adapter and AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm F2.8G ED lens at 14mm and ƒ/2.8 for all shots.
Sky Exposure: Star stack of 20 exposures at ISO 3200, 8 seconds each. The exposures were stacked for pinpoint stars and low noise in Starry Landscape Stacker for Mac (you can do this on Windows using Sequator). I processed the stack twice, once for the sky and another time using the foreground pool of water in the pothole for the star reflections. I used the pool as the “sky mask” so that Starry Landscape Stacker would align and average the stars in the pool. In both cases the results are pinpoint stars and low noise.
Foreground Exposure: Focus stack from three separate exposures, each at ISO 1600 for 10 minutes.
The resulting sky star stack, reflection star stack, and all three foreground exposures were blended in Photoshop for low noise and depth of field.
Learn more about Milky Way shooting & editing techniques through tutorials available at Adam’s website, www.adamwoodworth.com, and follow him on Instagram as @awoodworthphoto.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “The Eternals” by Kevin King. Location: California.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
The winners of the 2019 Wildlife Photo Contest have been announced. We received so many incredible submissions that we want to continue to share them with you in different categories. We started with a gallery of bear photos, and below you’ll find your big cat fix.
Congratulations to Harry Lichtman for winning the recent Shooting Stars assignment with the image, “Star Lake.” See more of Lichtman’s photography at www.harrylichtman.com.
View the winning image and a selection of submissions in the image gallery below. And be sure to check out our current photography assignment here and enter your best shots!
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
In our December 2019 issue of Outdoor Photographer, we feature the work of landscape photographer Ted Gore. “I prefer to use the term ‘images’ rather than photographs for my own work,” Gore says, “because the definition of a photograph is a bit gray, and I do utilize more techniques beyond the capabilities of a camera and what it can give me alone.” Gore describes his position on the debate of how much processing is “acceptable” in nature photography, as well as his techniques and use of color theory in creating his moody, dramatic landscape images in our feature story, “Amongst Giants.”
On the cover is one of Gore’s images, taken at Sunburst Peak in the Canadian Rockies. Here’s the story behind the shot.
“I was in the Mt. Assiniboine area for a few days of shooting at the end of September, in the hopes of catching the changing colors of the larch trees. I also was treated to a fresh covering of snow, which was really making the entire region extra spectacular. The image is of Sunburst Peak, with Cerulean Lake flanking its base. Mt. Assiniboine, the most prominent peak of the area, stands tall behind and to the left of Sunburst Peak.
“The forecasts had been predicting clear skies for the day, so I set my aim for a twilight image. Twilight is such a beautiful time of day, especially in the morning, when the air is crisp and clear and has a certain type of glow to it that is hard to describe. I find this is even more so the case in the mountains. The peaks catch the pink alpenglow and, when combined with the soft blues of the twilight sky, make for a perfect color palette.
“Four shots were used for this image, one being the twilight sky, which was taken about 30 minutes before sunrise, and then a three-shot focus stack of the foreground and land a short while later. This allowed for the ambient light to increase so that I could capture the ground portion of the image with as little noise as possible, without separating the two moments so much that combining them would be difficult and possibly not look correct together.”
–Ted Gore
The December 2019 issue is available now in a variety of digital formats including Apple News+ and will be on newsstands beginning Tuesday, December 3.
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Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Foggy Fall Landing” by Stan Bysshe. Location: Virginia.
“Huntley Meadows wetlands were flat and calm on a foggy morning when a great blue heron came in to start fishing,” describes Bysshe.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Wildlife photography can be very rewarding in many respects. Simply being out in nature at sunrise and sunset trumps sitting in front of a computer checking email and social media. Getting good animal images requires knowing their behavior and mannerisms so you get an education about each species you capture. The feel of fresh air and warm sun on your back as you press the shutter are two bonuses. You get to travel to locations where you may never have gone to capture wildlife photos, so you acquire more culture and become more sophisticated.
With the above being said, they’re all great, but the real trophy is coming back with that prize-winning image. When you do, it’s exhilarating, rewarding, thrilling and exalting, all of which bring you to the part where it becomes so intoxicating that you have to go back out and do it again. If you’ve experienced the above, I wish I could see the massive smile you’re now wearing.
When photographing animals, there’s a magnitude of variables that dictate if you get that “winner.” The subject decides where it wants to go and when it will become mobile. Unfortunately, you can’t direct the animal into the location you want that’s bathed in great light. You can’t coerce him to turn and look in the direction you want. It’s not within your power to compel the subject to hunt, nurse, fly, run, wing flap, play with its siblings or perform any other type of behavior.
To get you on your way to having your wildlife photos rise above the level of other wildlife photographers, wait for your subject to display some sort of behavior. Digital photography has raised the bar. Back in the film days, a great portrait of an animal was a winning shot. Today, it’s commonplace. To get that photo that shows good behavior, have patience. With each species you encounter, go ahead and make the portrait, but then wait for something special to occur. Don’t give up—wildlife photography is challenging but very satisfying. When it does all come together and you look toward the sky and verbalize “thanks,” it will motivate you to go back out in the field again and again.
Lioness and Cub
This image was made in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. The settings were 1/1250 at ƒ/5.0, ISO 400 and made with a 600mm lens. I wanted the background as much out of focus as possible, so I opened up the aperture. To get the behavior between the two, we parked perpendicular to the momma who was napping on a rock. The cubs were frolicking on their own. This one decided it was time to play with mom. Patience and perseverance paid off. I watched the cub climb the lower part of the rock toward momma. He initially placed both his paws on mom’s rump and then, as if the photo gods willed it, took its right front paw and gently placed it on her forehead. It lasted but a second. The behavior displayed by the cub in this photo made waiting totally worth it.
Herons In Silhouette
Sunrise and sunset are my favorite times to make images. I especially like to make silhouettes during these times since the color of the sky is much brighter than the backlit animals. The contrast is high, so whatever is in the foreground becomes a delineated form. I was visiting Florida in early March and made a jaunt up to Viera Wetlands for sunrise. I drove the berm to the backside of this palm where great blue herons were in the process of building a nest. Knowing their behavior, they’re active in the morning hours. I waited as either the male or female came back with a stick to construct their new nursery. I used a 200-400mm at 1/1600 at f/11 to cover any variation in depth of field if the incoming heron was on a different plane than the one sitting on the nest. Patience, persistence and knowledge of the heron’s behavior allowed me to capture this image.
Running Gazelles
Thompson’s gazelles run very fast and they don’t often give a signal as to when they’ll take off. With this in mind, I kept my eye glued to the viewfinder since there were some subadults that were playing. All of a sudden, one decided to bolt after another and I stayed with the action that lasted about 20 seconds as they ran in an erratic path. I used an 80-400mm at 400mm, f/5.6, 1/500th and ISO 125. The gazelles are sharp since I panned the camera with their movement. I intentionally had the ISO low so I could maintain the shutter speed I used. The good behavior was able to be recorded because I saw potential as the young adults began to play. Use the knowledge that you gain learning the species you photograph in addition to a bit of common sense.
Moose and Water
The cow moose spraying water was made in Glacier National Park. She entered the shallow lake and began to feed off the vegetation at the bottom. On occasion, she’d fling her head back to rid her face of water and be able to chew her bounty more easily. In this photo, she came up with no food but the splash was wonderful. Knowing how and where the moose feed allowed me to get the good behavior performed in this image. Additionally, I went back to this lake multiple times and each visit provided different images. In regard to this one, it was the best that displayed typical moose behavior. The settings were 1/640, ƒ/6.3, ISO 400 and I used an 80-400mm at a focal length of 350mm.
Baboons
Baboons are very gregarious. They travel in groups called a congress. (Yes, I can hear the laughter already). The interaction that’s displayed between adults and young in addition to adults with adults shows care for each other. While I have seen disputes, most of the behavior is congenial. These two were grooming each other, so I locked my 600mm onto them. Back and forth they went, but when the one on the left reached in with its snout and the one on the right closed its eyes, I laid on the shutter. Once again, patience, persistence and knowledge allowed me to capture the photo. The settings were 1/640th, ƒ/5.6, ISO 800, and I used a 600mm lens to get in tight on the behavior.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Mission Valley Weather Front” by Jim Oker. Location: Ronan, Montana.
“A thunderstorm rolls through Montana’s Mission Valley,” describes Oker. “Looking toward the Mission Mountains from Ronan, Montana.”
Nikon D850. Settings: ½ sec., f/11, ISO 64.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “First Snow” by Dave Stoker. Location: Wasatch Mountains, Utah.
“An early snowstorm in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah brings a transition of seasons,” describes Stoker.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Anhinga” by Mike Timmons. Location: Everglades National Park, Florida.
“The sunset glints across the shoulders of an anhinga,” describes Timmons.
Photo of the Day is chosen from various OP galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and the OP Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the OP website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Aerial view of mountains with a river flowing through the coastal plains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Mason Cummings.
Stomachs churned as our tiny plane jerked up, then left, right and back down. I glanced up and saw Nathaniel vomiting into a Ziploc bag. We passed a mere 100 feet over a jagged ridge and were once again thrown around like rag dolls. Beneath us, mountain ranges were sliced open by the blue and white waters of a wide braided river. We’d been flying for an hour and hadn’t seen a road, trail or any sign of human touch.
A series of 20,000-year-old caribou trails emerged on a mountainside. The Gwich’in people, who have lived on this land with the caribou for the entirety of their cultural memory, say that the caribou trails in the mountains of the refuge are like the lines in an elder’s face.
Our team headed into Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home of wolverines, grizzlies, snowy owls and a herd of 200,000 caribou. This was the first in a series of expeditions organized by the International League of Conservation Photographers to document the incredible landscapes, wildlife and people that depend on the refuge. Our small but strong team of four—Nathaniel Wilder, Bethany Pacquette, Katie Schuler and myself—hoped our images and stories would be part of a groundswell of voices calling for the refuge’s protection.
Flying into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by bush plane takes one directly over the impressive Brooks Range and majestic Canning River valley. Photo by David Thoreson.
As we approached our landing strip, I saw the white face of the flat coastal plain and Arctic Ocean over the last mountain range. The coastal plain is the heartbeat of the refuge. In summer it is a lush field of flowers and grasses and is abuzz with wildlife and bugs. Hundreds of thousands of migrating birds come to nest, rear and feed in the small lakes and ponds that mark the landscape. Grizzly bears roam the open plains in search of young caribou, but it is the caribou bringing the landscape to life.
The 200,000-strong porcupine caribou herd complete the longest known mammal migration on the coastal plain, where they give birth to 40,000 calves in the first week of June every year. We were here to photograph and film this exceptional event, but nature lobbed us a surprise this year. An extremely late spring saw the coastal plain covered in snow and ice, which is no place for caribou calves or their paparazzi.
In efforts to avoid the icy and snowy traditional calving grounds, most of the caribou birthed in the foothills east of us in Canada, where the food is less plentiful and predators run rampant. Surprisingly, the biggest predator of newborn caribou calves are golden eagles and rough-legged hawks, who live in the mountains and foothills just off the coastal plain.
Caribou calves move west with their mothers through the Clarence River watershed, just miles from the Canadian border during the annual coastal plain migration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Calves must stick close to their moms during the first months of their lives in order to receive enough protein and fatty-rich milk to strengthen them, allowing for hundreds of miles of travel with the herd in the first year of their lives. Photo by Nathaniel Wilder.
Our best chance of seeing the caribou was to camp in the foothills of the Arctic Refuge, hoping that the coastal plains melted and the caribou passed through our view on their way to their calving grounds. Unfortunately, this meant boarding another rickety plane. Our aircraft dipped beneath the mountains, into the foothills and came to a stuttering stop alongside the Kongakut River. We landed on what could loosely be called a boulder field but somehow passed as an airstrip up here.
Over the next three days, we hunkered down on the Kongakut River and watched small groups of 10 to 20 caribou passing by. The caribou we saw were barren cows, yearlings and young bulls. They left the vast bulk of pregnant cows and newborns back in Canada, since those were not yet ready to travel. On our third day, we spotted our first calf. Only days old, it already could outrun a grizzly bear. It followed the mother, full of energy, determination and a panicked desire not to get left behind.
Frustrated by the lack of caribou calves, we decided to hike east out to the coastal plain in hopes of intercepting the herd. The two-day hike was a lesson in misery; snowdrifts, snowstorms, snowfall, frozen tussocks, frozen swamps and more snow. The glue that held our group together was Anchorage-based photographer Nathaniel. His infectious enthusiasm almost made the first day’s hike through the tundra a fun jaunt. His continued optimism, when the second day turned into 12 hours of slush mucking, made me want to punch him in the stomach so that I could enjoy my anger and misery in peace. Luckily I didn’t, as he probably would have cheerfully beat me to a pulp.
The porcupine caribou herd number around 200,000 and each summer migrate north to the Arctic Ocean on the longest mammal-based migration route on the planet. Their birthing grounds are referred to as “the sacred place where life begins.” Photo by David Thoreson.
When we arrived at our destination, where the coastal plain meets the foothill mountains, the weather turned, and we got a chance to explore. To our delight, we were no longer walking on snow and frozen tussocks but solid ground. A 2-mile stroll suddenly took an hour and required little energy. Our enthusiasm was quickly compressed into stress knots when we spotted our first grizzly bear. Four hours and five grizzlies later, and our nerves were really frayed. Grizzly bears out here are much wilder than down south. In more southern regions, a curious grizzly is often a dead grizzly. Up here, curiosity is usually rewarded with food, so the bears tend to be more aggressive with everything they see, including what could be viewed as colorful caribou that walk upright but are actually four nervous photographers hoping not to become dinner.
In the five days that we straddled the edges of the still-frozen coastal plain, we encountered eight grizzlies, eight wolves and dozens of birds of prey. This was the predator gauntlet that the caribou had to run, one of many reasons that they rely on the lands designated in Section 1002 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act passed by Congress in 1980—land that recently has been opened to the fossil fuel industry. The vulnerable land provides caribou with an abundance of high-protein food, protection from wolves and golden eagles who stick to the mountains to raise their young, protection from grizzlies that are easy to spot on the open plains, and relief from the hordes of mosquitoes that can drive any living being crazy.
The cows and calves didn’t make it to us in the foothills. We stayed as long as we could, but we ran out of food and had to return to our base camp at the Kongakut River and eventually back home. It was weeks before the caribou and calves finally made it to their core calving and nursing habitat. It was a very hard year for the caribou. I hoped this wasn’t a portent of their future. I believed we could band together to make an impact. Our team hoped that the stories we told and the photographs and videos we produced gave a glimpse of the beauty, the biodiversity and the need for this incredible refuge to be protected.
An arctic fox feeds on caribou remains in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Peter Mather.
The calving grounds expedition was tough, but we certainly didn’t have the toughest luck of the eight iLCP expeditions to the area. We saw hundreds of cow caribou and calves in small groups, had some epic grizzly encounters and a grand adventure. Two weeks after our expedition, a 12-person team embarked on a 12-day hike through the steep mountains in the center of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They spent countless hours trampling up and down mountainsides on caribou trails over 20,000 years old. The objective of the expedition was to experience and capture photos and footage of the porcupine caribou herd as they aggregated into tightly packed groups of 50,000 animals migrating east through the mountains to their summer range in Canada. Envious that I wasn’t on the trip, I imagined myself as a rock in the middle of a flowing river of caribou. I envisioned the wonder of seeing them as one big organism moving in unison.
Unfortunately, that team had worse luck than us. After 11 days without seeing a single caribou, it embarked on a grueling 30-mile, 18-hour desperation hike based on tales of thousands of caribou to the north. As the group flew out the next day, they passed over 10,000 animals heading straight to their abandoned camp—a lesson that no matter how much you plan, nature is unpredictable and sovereign.
Later in the summer, I was in the Gwich’in community of Arctic Village, on the southern edges of the refuge, with photographers Mark Kelly and Justin Taus. Once again, we were waiting for the caribou to pass through. The small village is nestled in a flat valley protected by a series of gargoyle mountains cut with a ribbon of twisting dull green water. It was late August, and the land was painted brilliant red, green and yellow. The bugs died with the first cold snap, and the air was sharp and intoxicating. We came to document the reciprocal relationship of the Gwich’in and caribou.
Two Gwich’in hunters take a break after a successful porcupine caribou hunt near Arctic Village, Alaska. Photo by Justin Taus.
Community matriarch Sarah James’ hunting camp was nestled in a little dip valley on the mountain plateau on the outskirts of town. We spent days on the mountain with her and a few young hunters. We didn’t have the patience of the Gwich’in, who have spent years of their lives waiting for the caribou.
We wondered, “When will they come?”
“They will come, they always come,” replied Sarah assuredly. “The caribou are our life. Healthy caribou means healthy Gwich’in. They must come.”
We flew home the next day, yet again missing the elusive caribou. The late spring altered the patterns of the caribou and threw our best-laid plans to waste. Every expedition seemed to miss the elusive ungulates by days. It is amazing how hard it can be to find 200,000 caribou in this massive landscape.
We were sad and frustrated when we missed the caribou, but there are no tangible consequences for us, simply some missed photo opportunities and disappointed editors. If the people of the Arctic Village miss the caribou, they struggle to feed themselves. If development occurs in the calving grounds, then what would they eat? How would that affect their culture and community? It is no wonder they have been laser-focused on protecting the caribou and their calving grounds for decades.
Dark clouds shadow the mountains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Mason Cummings.
These expeditions served more than their intended purpose. Our team faced many challenges, physically, emotionally and with our photography and filmmaking. We had to make snap decisions in efforts to produce results, and we encountered frustration and disappointments. But we were fueled by our passion for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and our aim to tell some of the fascinating stories within this stunning region.
Congratulations to Danielle Austen for winning the recent Atmospheric Landscapes with the image, “Rise.” Austen is an award-winning fine art photographer who specializes in documenting intimate portraits of the environment. See more of her work at www.danielleausten.com.
View the winning image and a selection of submissions in the image gallery below. And be sure to check out our current photography assignment here and enter your best shots!
Aerial view of mountains with a river flowing through the coastal plains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Mason Cummings.
Stomachs churned as our tiny plane jerked up, then left, right and back down. I glanced up and saw Nathaniel vomiting into a Ziploc bag. We passed a mere 100 feet over a jagged ridge and were once again thrown around like rag dolls. Beneath us, mountain ranges were sliced open by the blue and white waters of a wide braided river. We’d been flying for an hour and hadn’t seen a road, trail or any sign of human touch.
A series of 20,000-year-old caribou trails emerged on a mountainside. The Gwich’in people, who have lived on this land with the caribou for the entirety of their cultural memory, say that the caribou trails in the mountains of the refuge are like the lines in an elder’s face.
Our team headed into Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home of wolverines, grizzlies, snowy owls and a herd of 200,000 caribou. This was the first in a series of expeditions organized by the International League of Conservation Photographers to document the incredible landscapes, wildlife and people that depend on the refuge. Our small but strong team of four—Nathaniel Wilder, Bethany Pacquette, Katie Schuler and myself—hoped our images and stories would be part of a groundswell of voices calling for the refuge’s protection.
Flying into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by bush plane takes one directly over the impressive Brooks Range and majestic Canning River valley. Photo by David Thoreson.
As we approached our landing strip, I saw the white face of the flat coastal plain and Arctic Ocean over the last mountain range. The coastal plain is the heartbeat of the refuge. In summer it is a lush field of flowers and grasses and is abuzz with wildlife and bugs. Hundreds of thousands of migrating birds come to nest, rear and feed in the small lakes and ponds that mark the landscape. Grizzly bears roam the open plains in search of young caribou, but it is the caribou bringing the landscape to life.
The 200,000-strong porcupine caribou herd complete the longest known mammal migration on the coastal plain, where they give birth to 40,000 calves in the first week of June every year. We were here to photograph and film this exceptional event, but nature lobbed us a surprise this year. An extremely late spring saw the coastal plain covered in snow and ice, which is no place for caribou calves or their paparazzi.
In efforts to avoid the icy and snowy traditional calving grounds, most of the caribou birthed in the foothills east of us in Canada, where the food is less plentiful and predators run rampant. Surprisingly, the biggest predator of newborn caribou calves are golden eagles and rough-legged hawks, who live in the mountains and foothills just off the coastal plain.
Caribou calves move west with their mothers through the Clarence River watershed, just miles from the Canadian border during the annual coastal plain migration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Calves must stick close to their moms during the first months of their lives in order to receive enough protein and fatty-rich milk to strengthen them, allowing for hundreds of miles of travel with the herd in the first year of their lives. Photo by Nathaniel Wilder.
Our best chance of seeing the caribou was to camp in the foothills of the Arctic Refuge, hoping that the coastal plains melted and the caribou passed through our view on their way to their calving grounds. Unfortunately, this meant boarding another rickety plane. Our aircraft dipped beneath the mountains, into the foothills and came to a stuttering stop alongside the Kongakut River. We landed on what could loosely be called a boulder field but somehow passed as an airstrip up here.
Over the next three days, we hunkered down on the Kongakut River and watched small groups of 10 to 20 caribou passing by. The caribou we saw were barren cows, yearlings and young bulls. They left the vast bulk of pregnant cows and newborns back in Canada, since those were not yet ready to travel. On our third day, we spotted our first calf. Only days old, it already could outrun a grizzly bear. It followed the mother, full of energy, determination and a panicked desire not to get left behind.
Frustrated by the lack of caribou calves, we decided to hike east out to the coastal plain in hopes of intercepting the herd. The two-day hike was a lesson in misery; snowdrifts, snowstorms, snowfall, frozen tussocks, frozen swamps and more snow. The glue that held our group together was Anchorage-based photographer Nathaniel. His infectious enthusiasm almost made the first day’s hike through the tundra a fun jaunt. His continued optimism, when the second day turned into 12 hours of slush mucking, made me want to punch him in the stomach so that I could enjoy my anger and misery in peace. Luckily I didn’t, as he probably would have cheerfully beat me to a pulp.
The porcupine caribou herd number around 200,000 and each summer migrate north to the Arctic Ocean on the longest mammal-based migration route on the planet. Their birthing grounds are referred to as “the sacred place where life begins.” Photo by David Thoreson.
When we arrived at our destination, where the coastal plain meets the foothill mountains, the weather turned, and we got a chance to explore. To our delight, we were no longer walking on snow and frozen tussocks but solid ground. A 2-mile stroll suddenly took an hour and required little energy. Our enthusiasm was quickly compressed into stress knots when we spotted our first grizzly bear. Four hours and five grizzlies later, and our nerves were really frayed. Grizzly bears out here are much wilder than down south. In more southern regions, a curious grizzly is often a dead grizzly. Up here, curiosity is usually rewarded with food, so the bears tend to be more aggressive with everything they see, including what could be viewed as colorful caribou that walk upright but are actually four nervous photographers hoping not to become dinner.
In the five days that we straddled the edges of the still-frozen coastal plain, we encountered eight grizzlies, eight wolves and dozens of birds of prey. This was the predator gauntlet that the caribou had to run, one of many reasons that they rely on the lands designated in Section 1002 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act passed by Congress in 1980—land that recently has been opened to the fossil fuel industry. The vulnerable land provides caribou with an abundance of high-protein food, protection from wolves and golden eagles who stick to the mountains to raise their young, protection from grizzlies that are easy to spot on the open plains, and relief from the hordes of mosquitoes that can drive any living being crazy.
The cows and calves didn’t make it to us in the foothills. We stayed as long as we could, but we ran out of food and had to return to our base camp at the Kongakut River and eventually back home. It was weeks before the caribou and calves finally made it to their core calving and nursing habitat. It was a very hard year for the caribou. I hoped this wasn’t a portent of their future. I believed we could band together to make an impact. Our team hoped that the stories we told and the photographs and videos we produced gave a glimpse of the beauty, the biodiversity and the need for this incredible refuge to be protected.
An arctic fox feeds on caribou remains in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Peter Mather.
The calving grounds expedition was tough, but we certainly didn’t have the toughest luck of the eight iLCP expeditions to the area. We saw hundreds of cow caribou and calves in small groups, had some epic grizzly encounters and a grand adventure. Two weeks after our expedition, a 12-person team embarked on a 12-day hike through the steep mountains in the center of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They spent countless hours trampling up and down mountainsides on caribou trails over 20,000 years old. The objective of the expedition was to experience and capture photos and footage of the porcupine caribou herd as they aggregated into tightly packed groups of 50,000 animals migrating east through the mountains to their summer range in Canada. Envious that I wasn’t on the trip, I imagined myself as a rock in the middle of a flowing river of caribou. I envisioned the wonder of seeing them as one big organism moving in unison.
Unfortunately, that team had worse luck than us. After 11 days without seeing a single caribou, it embarked on a grueling 30-mile, 18-hour desperation hike based on tales of thousands of caribou to the north. As the group flew out the next day, they passed over 10,000 animals heading straight to their abandoned camp—a lesson that no matter how much you plan, nature is unpredictable and sovereign.
Later in the summer, I was in the Gwich’in community of Arctic Village, on the southern edges of the refuge, with photographers Mark Kelly and Justin Taus. Once again, we were waiting for the caribou to pass through. The small village is nestled in a flat valley protected by a series of gargoyle mountains cut with a ribbon of twisting dull green water. It was late August, and the land was painted brilliant red, green and yellow. The bugs died with the first cold snap, and the air was sharp and intoxicating. We came to document the reciprocal relationship of the Gwich’in and caribou.
Two Gwich’in hunters take a break after a successful porcupine caribou hunt near Arctic Village, Alaska. Photo by Justin Taus.
Community matriarch Sarah James’ hunting camp was nestled in a little dip valley on the mountain plateau on the outskirts of town. We spent days on the mountain with her and a few young hunters. We didn’t have the patience of the Gwich’in, who have spent years of their lives waiting for the caribou.
We wondered, “When will they come?”
“They will come, they always come,” replied Sarah assuredly. “The caribou are our life. Healthy caribou means healthy Gwich’in. They must come.”
We flew home the next day, yet again missing the elusive caribou. The late spring altered the patterns of the caribou and threw our best-laid plans to waste. Every expedition seemed to miss the elusive ungulates by days. It is amazing how hard it can be to find 200,000 caribou in this massive landscape.
We were sad and frustrated when we missed the caribou, but there are no tangible consequences for us, simply some missed photo opportunities and disappointed editors. If the people of the Arctic Village miss the caribou, they struggle to feed themselves. If development occurs in the calving grounds, then what would they eat? How would that affect their culture and community? It is no wonder they have been laser-focused on protecting the caribou and their calving grounds for decades.
Dark clouds shadow the mountains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Mason Cummings.
These expeditions served more than their intended purpose. Our team faced many challenges, physically, emotionally and with our photography and filmmaking. We had to make snap decisions in efforts to produce results, and we encountered frustration and disappointments. But we were fueled by our passion for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and our aim to tell some of the fascinating stories within this stunning region.
