“Capturing Alaska”
with Wayde Carroll






Petersburg and Mitkof Island


  
   I’m still trying to finish editing and captioning all of last summer’s images, hoping to be caught up before this coming summer’s onslaught of stock trips. As you may guess, summer is a extremely busy and productive time of year when the majority of Alaskan images are captured.
   This week I’m highlighting the four days I spent in Petersburg, on Mitkof Island in southeast Alaska.
   I really, really, loved Petersburg. It is a genuine, working, fishing village founded by Norwegian settlers in the late 1800’s. Because of its location along the Inside Passage it is not accessible to the major cruise lines, thus it has a distinctly different feel than places such as Ketchikan that are swamped with tourists and jewelry stores.
   I happened to arrive just before the salmon season opened and it was such a thrill to see the fishermen readying their boats and gear. I truly felt as if I had stumbled in to an Alaska of yesteryear.
   The harbor is a great place to wander around photographing authentic Alaska but the town and the island, Mitkof, have so much more to offer. Hammer Slough, which runs into the harbor, hosts an amazing array of early 1900’s stilt homes along its’ banks. The beaches, surrounding islands, and mountains, add to the scenic splendor. If you can get a ride or rent a car and cruise along the Mitkof Highway you will be rewarded with stunning hiking, pristine views of several different ecosystems from muskeg bogs to remote beachfronts that are so devoid of human traces and so clogged with driftwood that I felt like I was in the lost world. When I stumbled on a nearly complete bear skeleton at the high tide mark my sense of adventure, and heart rate, were heightened to the extreme. Something had been gnawing the bones and I was a little worried about finding out what. It was glorious to scramble around in such a wild and stunningly beautiful place.
   As with any travel, the entire gamut of lenses, from fish eye to extreme telephoto, can be used. One of the main concerns with photography in Southeast Alaska is rain. I’d say that I had only five days without rain during a three-week trip. The trick is getting out anyway. Even if it’s a rainy day there are often breaks in the weather, which can give you periods of bright sky and even sunshine. If you’re sitting in your hotel room and try and rush out during the break you’re going to be sorry. You don’t have to be standing out in a downpour with your camera, but be near an interesting area in your car, a coffee shop, under dense trees. I try to keep moving, exploring, and let the weather open up when it will. In a light rain I’ll just wander around with my camera tucked into my jacket. I have a small umbrella attached to my backpack to hold over a tripod-mounted camera.
   Shooting while it’s raining is also a viable option. The images of the fishermen working and the one of the boat tied up to the processing plant were taken during a steady downpour. Like long exposures, rain can add a silky effect to water.
   Many of the other images that appear to be a nice sunny day were in fact taken during short breaks in the weather. Just be prepared and be out there!
   PS- Keep an eye on the ocean. You never know when a pod of Killer Whales may be cruising by just off shore.