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Some years you get all the luck.  I have spent my last 26 summers in Alaska, and some years Denali and the Alaska Range barely peak out. Other years you see it day after day.  I just returned from 3 weeks of shooting in Alaska, and had some great windows of clear weather for incredible aerial photography.  After flying and shooting on the south side of the mountain earlier this summer, I had a chance to fly and shoot on the north side of the mountain in July.  Without a cloud in the sky!  Even though Denali is the most prominent and famous mountain in the Alaska Range, a highlight for me was flying right over the French Ridge on Mt. Huntington.  This is a mountain I have some history with…

I flew in with 3 climbing partners one summer season to climb the classic Harvard Route on the West Face.  To access the face,  we had to traverse a double corniced ridge appropriately named the Stegosaur.  This ridge is dangerous, you never really know if you are climbing on a cornice or the actual ridge.  On top of that, we waited weeks in a tent below the face waiting for a break in the weather.  When we finally got good weather, we raced up to start climbing the Stegosaur.  We spent a day just tunneling through deep snow to get on the ridge.  The next day we started our climb across the ridge, and set off a huge avalanche, almost burying two of our party.  We retreated to the tent, broke out some whiskey, and stayed away from the route for a few days.  And then the weather got nasty again.  Mt. Huntington would not be climbed by us that season…sometimes you make the summit, sometimes you don’t.  Better to be safe.

As with all aerial shooting, dial up your ISO and shoot at as fast as you can to ensure sharp shots.  One thing we found with the windows of this plane is using a polarizer resulted in a strange color balance.  Off with the polarizer, and keep on shooting!  Get your lens as close to the window as you can but without touching it to avoid reflections.  Better yet, fly with the door off if your pilot will allow it.

Or maybe I should say planes, helicopters, jet boats, atvs and dog sleds.  In the middle of assignment work in Alaska this summer, always love going back to where we used to live and work with great clients.  These shoots get really crazy.  The sun sets after midnight in June, and the night never really gets dark.  I had some great weather, so here is a breakdown of a normal day shooting on assignment.

12PM/midnight: clear skies, shoot Denali from overlook, set up tent and climb in sleeping bag.

1:30AM grizzly bear running across road by camp, I’m the only person in a tent…hhmmm.

3:30AM up to shoot early morning light on denali, already plenty light out .

5AM drive to next shooting location.

6:30AM shoot Denali from a new location

8AM board float plane for aerial shooting

10AM drive to next shoot, Musk Ox farm

12Noon lunch

1pm drive to next shoot

3pm board helicopter for aerial shooting/dog sledding

4pm jump on snow machine to chase dog sledders across glacier

6pm dinner

8pm shoot nice light on mountains

10pm bed

I had some great shooting from helicopters and planes this assignment.   The trick with shooting from planes is getting enough shutter speed to reduce blurry shots, and put your lens right against the window if you have a window (some pilots will take doors off for shooting).  I like to shoot 1/500 or faster with my VR on.  This improves my odds for tack sharp images, but shoot a lot since you don’t get these opportunities a lot.

I also use a Singh-ray LB color polarizer for many of my landscape aerials.  This filter really punches up the color and contrast.

I have been working on some video projects for an upcoming article and really enjoyed exploring the capabilities of DSLR video. I worked with Chris the other day in an urban part of town. We have done a lot of shoots together and practically know what the other person is thinking when it comes to poses and concepts. The difference this time was shooting video along with stills on the same shoot.  Take a look at the HD video.  

I used my 45mm tilt shift lens for a number of the soft focus clips. And I used the Redrock Micro Captain Stubling for hand held video and follow focus with my lens.  Using the Stubling really opened up camera angles for us.  I found shooting video very easy on the D3s, and was amazed at the quality.  720p HD video at 24fps has a great cinematic quality to it and worked perfect for this shoot. For lighting on the video we used Litepanel Micro Pro lights.

For lighting on the stills we used Elinchrom Quadras.  I am using these lights more and more… light, convenient and powerful.   I really like being able to use the same accessories as with our larger Rangers.

We have been using some new post processing technique in CS5  I learned from Matt Kloskowski.  Matt is a great guy and gladly shares his wealth of knowledge about CS5 and Lightroom.  If you haven’t checked out the videos at Kelby Training (www.kelbytraining.com) on his techniques and much more, you should take a look. We also had a chance to do a couple training videos for Kelby Training, stay tuned for these episodes soon!

Tech: Nikon D3s for video (variety of lenses), D3 for stills; 24-70mm lens, 1/250 at F11, ISO 200.  Elinchrom Quadra packs with A heads for lighting, one light shot through a gridded (rotagrid) 27″ square Rotalux softbox, the other shot with a standard reflector attached. Skyports triggered the lights wirelessly from the camera.  Video: Capt. Stubling rig from Redrock Micro used for handheld shots, Litepanel Micro Pro lights used for video.