Cold weather gear check, camera gear check, ready for the next adventure check!  It’s time for my Alaskan adventure. I had signed up for my first photography workshop and the time had come.

So the previous year I had discovered, not this isn’t a Columbus situation here with new land as I am sure this person knew of themselves and others have as well long before I did, but I discovered this photographer on YouTube who does great gear reviews and provides tips and tricks for upping your photography game. Well I discovered Toby while trying to find what gear would be ideal to bring on an African Safari.He had gone one year with this group to teach others and provided his review of what gear would be best to use.

So I had started interacting with him, he is so helpful and genuine so I opted to join his photography community. This has been one of the best things I did for myself in my photography journey. I have learned so much from this group and they inspire me to learn more. Toby, in addition to all of this, is an instructor with the McKay Group who offers photography courses and workshops, sometimes locally and sometimes out there in this great big world.  So I had kept an eye out with these workshops, because tying together travel and photography is my perfect dream.  Well the McKay’s offered up this week course in Alaska to shoot the Northern Lights and signed up I did.

What’s in my Bag

I brought:

  • 2 DSLR camera bodies (D7100, D500)
  • 2 lenses (18-400, 11-20)
  • Panasonic Point and Shoot (to capture video and to not fuss adjusting settings between photo/video) (I ended up not using this at all)
  • MeFoto Travel Tripod
  • All of the batteries (Batteries die quickly in the cold so we brought plenty of batteries).
  •  Headlamp to see in the dark when shooting night photography
  • Powerpack to charge my phone on the go
  • Travel power strip
  • Plenty of Memory Cards
  • Laptop and external hard drive (we would be doing some editing software reviews)
  • Silica packets and some 2 gallon ziplock bags to transfer the camera from in and out of the cold without having condensation issues
  • We also had packed plenty of hand and foot warmers not just for our feet but with hand warmers you can keep your lenses and batteries warmer so you don’t drain them or fog lenses if its cold out.

My itinerary :

  •  Day 1 and 2: Anchorage (arrival and exploring Matanuska Glacier)
  • Day 3: Talkeetna (shooting with Iditarod team)
  • Day 4-6: Fairbanks (Train and shooting aurora)

Alaska Part 1

The time has come so now I’m headed off to Alaska. I get on my flights and had a brief layover in Seattle. While visiting the restroom I had a stupefied moment.  I washed my hands, grabbed a paper towel to dry them, just as I pulled out the paper towel was it ripped from my hands. The lady next to me snatched it right up and out of my hands like I was the bathroom attendant getting the paper towel out just for her.  I looked at her stunned, shook my head and continued on.  Really?!

Soon enough my flight to Anchorage commenced and I was in awe of the wondrous snow capped mountains came into view as we approached our landing.  I quickly found a few of the others who were on my flight that were a part of the group and met up with the rest of our team.  We had our first dinner out as a group and got our intro into what was to be a busy week.

The next morning my body was not on the time zone at all!  Alaska is 3 hours behind my normal time so 4 AM my eyes popped open and there was no closing them.  Around 7:30 I went to open the curtains to let the light in and op, I guess its more to let the street light in as it was pitch black outside.   We were on our way, there were about 27 of us on the trip. 4 instructors, 20 photographers and a few non-photographers.

Okay I know I’m a goof but I was questioning if anyone would get my humor as when one of the drivers of the group said Eagle River, I was the only one who felt like shouting back, Eagle River?! You know from Hot Shots…. Okay maybe it is still just me. My sister would have gotten it though, we joke that we really only speak in movie quote references.

The first excursion, we were off to the Matanuska Glacier. It was a grey, slightly snowy day as we hiked down to the glacier. Pictures weren’t super exciting as the sky wasn’t giving much dimension from the snow so while the experience was fantastic you had to be all the more creative to get great photographs. There weren’t any large ice caves this year, last year there was massive ones but there were small ones we were able to duck into to get a few shots.

 

When we had toured the glacier we left to grab a bite to eat and had some wonderful warmed soup, blueberry pie and sandwiches. The  place was decked out in holiday gear but I had a grim  discovery. Rudolph, poor poor Rudolph, he would not be playing any more reindeer games. He had passed and was forever enshrined at our luncheon place.

On the drive home a few of us were looking for the oh shit handle bar as the roads were slick and we felt a few herky jerky moments. Note to self just stop looking at the roads and close your eyes, best to not know when/if your demise is imminent. It gets dark super early so while they were talking about places for people to go for dinner, I was thinking dinner? Isn’t it time to go to bed? Nope its only 5 PM. Now it gets dark in MN early and 5 PM is pretty dark but it was dark dark, like 10 PM middle of winter dark. I was ready for sleep vs thinking of going to dinner but my roommate, Bo, and I decided to stay in, order some take out and enjoy wine and an early night.

Puppies!

Ugh will this waking up at 4 AM stop?!  We were out on our next adventure to go to Dallas Seavey’s place to shoot with his Iditarod team.  Dallas Seavey is a 4 time Iditarod champion, which is the main dog sledding race in Alaska. This is the Alaskan version of the NFL and everyone knows and watches these events.  As the previous day was raining, yes it was warmer in Alaska than it was back at home, the roads were pretty icy when we went to head out so we were warned that we would be taking it quite slow today.

We started out at the Iditarod headquarters to watch an overview of the history of Iditarod and then we were off to Dallas Seavey’s place. We were also going to stay overnight in Talkeetna (Tall Keet en na) so one of the vans stopped off first at the hotel to drop off the luggage while we continued on. Remember those roads that were icy. Well it wasn’t long before we had to stop to put chains on so we didn’t slide all the way down the hill.

All dogs are puppies no matter their age, I don’t care what you say.  Arriving at Dallas’s place the dogs were all out by their houses. As soon as we emerged they started to get excited but it wasn’t until they saw the harnesses coming out that they were jumping and howling for joy. Screaming pick me, pick me!

2 teams of dogs were selected and we were off to have our own experience with dog sledding.  Cowboy was my favorite. He doesn’t race as he is bow legged (like a cowboy), but he loves to run and be a part of the pack. After my turn at running on the sled (rather I was riding) I found the puppies. About 8 weeks old these little snugglemuffins were adorable. This ginger one just wanted to nuzzle and kept creeping up further and further until he was well within the hood of my coat.  We wandered over to where the other puppies were and had some quality time with the puppies romping along.

 

As the sun was setting (think 3 pm), we had a chance to watch one of the trainers do a run with the dogs to attempt some panning techniques. This was not successful for me but as I tell people I like to fail, it’s the best way to learn.  Afterwards we all grabbed a beer and enjoyed some time around the fire before we departed for the day.

We had time to settle into the Swiss Lodge Inn in Talkeetna and had some downtime before we left to grab some dinner at the Denali Brewing Company.  I tried the Agave Gold Brew, interesting enough beer and had burger to pair. We had a clear night and could easily see the stars so we had an overview session on how best to do star and aurora shooting before we set outside to shoot away.  We could see faint, really faint green on the horizon but nothing major was happening. Most went back inside to get a good night sleep but a few of us went to try our luck sliding down the icy roads to head down to the river to get some other shots.  I got a few good landscape shots in but around 1 AM we decided to pack it in and head back.  Come back to read Alaska Part 2!