Posts filed under Photography

Canadaland

 

Flashback Friday  

Is this Landscape for real?  

    Almost a year ago I started packing, packing up my life into little boxes, well bags, to bring down, down from Alaska, and my sweet little cabin, down to Madison, WI. When you move from a state like Alaska, you can't just bring everything you own, it's expensive to ship things from that state, and expensive to rent U-Hauls etc. So, I did what everyone else does, sold most of my belongings and tried to reduced the number of bags to bring on my Journey. It was quite remarkable that I who came to Alaskaland 7 years ago (then) with only two suitcases now had so much stuff. Where did all this stuff come from? Bike, cross-country skis, backcountry skis, climbing gear and the list goes on. You can't just not bring those things, they are expensive, and have a low value second hand, much lower than what they cost when you buy them. I had already been bringing things down from Alaska, during several trips, and I still had this much. Either way, packed the car and drove with W, into the wilderness, into the big land of Canada, into no mans world and the Yukon, following the Alcan. What a trip, what a landscape. Completely breathtaking. 

 
 
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley
  with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence?
Then for God's sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
- Call of the Wild, Robert Service
 
 

    Have you ever been to Canada? If not you simply have to go!

 

Natures Magical World

Diamond Dust

 

Flashback Friday

Sun dogs and Diamond dust

    When the temperatures drop enough ice crystals form and together with some sun we get these beautiful sund dogs around the sun. If you are lucky enough, you can see part of this ring (the sund dog) right in front of you. This phenomenon is also called diamond dust, because obviously that is what it looks like. 

 

Sun dog

 

Skiing

    These pictures makes me miss the snow and cold weather a lot. Being able to ski every day, in one way or another. I could choose between biking (as long as the temps were not too low since I never winterized my bike) or ski to school. The morning commute was always worse than the afternoon, not because of the cold, but because of the darkness and moose. Imagine skiing into a dark forest on narrow skitrails at 7 in the morning. Sure, a headlamp helps, but the forest is really dark at that hour. In Alaska you loose about 6 minutes of daylight leading up to equinox, however after that you start to gain several minutes per day. So, before you know it, the mornings are light and soon the summer arrives, well after like 4 months.. 

 
 

Aurora Borealis

    Fairbanks is the main hot spot for Aurora in the whole world. I can say that the last year I saw aurora almost every day, to the point where I chose when I wanted to get up and out in the cold to take pictures depending on social media and live aurora cams. Now, of course, I really really miss having this opportunity, I mean even just going to pee in the middle of the night (to the outhouse) and look up and see this magical phenomenon going on. It's out of this world.

 
 

Magical Lights

    I have a deep connection with sunrises and sunsets. Nowadays I seldom get the opportunity to take as beautiful pictures as the one below, because I do not have that view while leaving work any more. 

 
 

    What is your favorite thing about nature? Have you ever seen Diamond Dust?

Winter Lights

Self portrait on one of those cold days in Alaska

The winter! the brightness that blinds you, 
   The white land locked tight as a drum, 
The cold fear that follows and finds you, 
   The silence that bludgeons you dumb. 
The snows that are older than history, 
   The woods where the weird shadows slant; 
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery, 
   I’ve bade ’em good-by— but I can’t. - Robert Service
 

Wednesday Thoughts

    Winters in Alaska are long, cold but absolutely beautiful. It struck me the other day how much I miss seeing that light, the light that comes with the cold. There is a special light of the sky, its sunsets and sunrises and midday glow which you only see when the temperatures drop below -20F. It's out of this world. 

 
 

    Have you experienced that light and the cold? What do you think?