“Capturing Alaska”
with Wayde Carroll






Glenn Highway


     Lat weekend I was photographing a wedding in Glennallen, which is about a three and a half hour drive northeast of Anchorage. I was very happy to take this job because I love any opportunity I can get to spend time driving along Alaska’s highways.  I could spend a lifetime doing it. One never know s what kind of subject matter may present itself and that makes it always exciting.  I may come across a mother bear and her cubs and be able to watch them scramble up a tree or I may see the clouds part and allow the sun to paint the landscape in front of me in a way I’ve never seen before. I keep my cameras on the seat next to me, and my tripod at the ready in the back.
     I had mostly overcast skies and no wildlife sightings but I still managed to get a few decent stock shots.
     The difficult thing for me is to resist the urge to take a few snaps out the window and keep going. For each of these images, with the exception of the pilot car, I pulled the car off the highway and set up the tripod so I could concentrate on composition and get the maximum depth of field (apparent sharpness) at a lower, finer grain, ISO (film speed). All seven of these images were taken on my way home from the roadway. Not a bad commute if you ask me!
     The old auto was found on a private residence in Glennallen. The floatplane is on Tazlina Lake. The highlighted taiga and mountain peaks were near Tahneta Pass. The glacier is the Matanuska. The last two images are typical of most any Alaska travel. It is very hard to go anywhere without having to stop and wait for a spell as a road crew frantically works on improving the roadway before winter sets in again. I sort of like it. It gives me an excuse to look around in spots you may never take the time.