Photo Blog: Wrangell, Alaska.
“Capturing Alaska”
with Wayde Carroll
Wrangell, Alaska
During my southeast Alaska trip last summer I spent a few days on the island, and in the town, of Wrangell. I don’t think I’ve ever been more comfortable in a new place. Everyone I met was extremely friendly and generous. I had total strangers offering me rides, bicycles for the length of my stay, and a promise of a car and a place to stay if I return (which I definitely will).
Add to this the mind numbing beauty surrounding the place and you’ve got one of my favorite destinations ever.
This is another stop on the Alaska Marine Highway accessible to the state ferry but not to the giant cruise ships and there are only around 2000 people who call Wrangell home so the pace is laid back. Its’ close proximity to the Stikine River ( compared by John Muir to Yosemite Valley) and the Anan Bear and Wildlife Observatory, makes it an ideal base camp with plenty to offer.
Besides the scenic river and the bears, you can search for the ancient mysterious petroglyphs, or rock carvings, that can be found at Petroglyph Beach State Historic Park. For such a small community it is surprising that they have a world class museum that houses many historical displays from its’ Tlingit roots through the Russians occupation through the gold rush and up to todays tourism and fishing based economy.
Explore Chief Shakes Tribal House and Totems, hike through the stunning Tongass National Forest up to Rainbow Falls, or climb the Mt. Dewey Trail to the spot where John Muir camped during one of his Alaskan adventures.
Oh yeah, there’s a pretty nice little golf course as well, Muskeg Meadows.
Photo Blog: 2008 Speedo/ Alaska Swim Olympics Pics
“Capturing Alaska”
with Wayde Carroll
2008 Speedo/ Alaska Junior Swim Olympics Pics
Last week I got to photograph some of the 2008 Speedo/ Alaska Junior Swim Olympics for Alaska Newspapers and the Seward Phoenix Log. I love sports and shooting action but when I got the call and heard the words “indoor swim meet” I said “no problem!” out loud but harbored serious concerns internally. Action, indoors. I knew this meant two things before I even showed up: low light and horrible color balance!
The event was held at Bartlett High School. I had never been there and I had never shot for Alaska Newspapers before. I was excited to get the gig but worried it would be a failure. What a difficult situation for a first assignment with a new client!
I was scheduled to shoot from 2pm to 4pm. I searched the internet to see if I could find anyone’s photos from that venue, what I found was less than encouraging: dark, bleak, green. Just what I thought. I decided to scout the location that morning so I would know exactly what I had gotten myself into.
I arrived at the pool around 9:30am and was happy to see that the competition was already in progress. Now I could make some tests under actual shooting conditions with action to boot.
While the lighting was a ghastly green, and somewhat low, it wasn’t the worst I’d ever seen and it was fairly evenly distributed throughout.
The first thing I did was photograph a gray card and set a custom white balance to it in the camera. This gave fairly accurate results as far as skin tone etc. I also chose to shoot in RAW so I could make any color corrections necessary more easily in post- production.
To freeze the action I wanted to make sure I maintained the fastest shutter speed possible. I had to push the ISO to 1600 to get 1/500 of a second at F4. This was actually about one stop under exposed but I’d rather hold the shutter speed and boost the exposure later than risk an unacceptable amount of out of focus images. One stop under doesn’t increase the noise too much but I didn’t want to go any lower than that.
The next important step was to consult with the meet officials and find out where it was ok for me to shoot from. Nothing is more embarrassing than being hollered at in front of one thousand people because you’ve positioned yourself, say, in front of a judge you hadn’t noticed! (Yes, I learned this previously the hard way!)
With that settled I shot a couple of events from different locations and went home to review the results. Everything was acceptable and I felt fully confident going back to the event later that day. Doing a little pre-planning makes for a much more relaxed, creative, and stress-free assignment!
I shot the event in manual at the settings I had previously determined. I had one camera with a 70-200mm F4 lens that I used for close-up action. On a second body I had the 24-70mm F2.8 lens for wider views. For the most part I used the auto-servo focusing that tracks your subject as it moves but once in a while, if I had a specific composition I wanted, I would just pre-focus on a spot and shoot multiple exposures as the subject(s) entered my framing.
I was happy with the results and my clients were too!


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Hey Wayde
OlegoatGreat action photography. Looks like you could stand anywhere you wanted. As with other pictures in your blog, I like the facial expressions that you capture. You might explain to all of us about shooting the grey card to set up the white balance. I'm completely lost on that one and could have maybe used it when I tried some action shots at a basketball game. Looking forward to more wonderful pictures and words of wisdom.
04:29 PM AKST