Sure it was 33 degrees and raining for the last 5 days, but I’ll still argue that I live in one of the most majestic places in the world. When that low pressure blew itself on out of here us ‘Homerites’ were blessed with one incredibly stunning sunset. The kind that make you pinch yourself and mumble – Holy cow, it’s for real, no photoshop, it just happens in nature!
I might not write about this, but after last nights sunset we had another gorgeous sunrise that put the icing on the visual cake of the last couple days. Contrast that with the last few days I’ve spent in the office trying to reassemble my computer. . . I decided to upgrade my system, which involved changing out the motherboard, nerd speak for the brains of my computer. I thought it would be easy and quick. Well, it turned out to be neither of those.
On the second day a friend, who knows me well, called with an alert to the unfolding magic outside. He called because in his own words – “I figured you were working on your computer.” That nonsense ended quickly. I ran outside and set up a still camera (canon 20D) on the porch with an interval timer instructing it to shoot a time laps sequence. Then I scurried up the hill behind my house to shoot the sunset from a better perspective than my porch offers. I often find myself in a situation of mild panic when the light is perfect out. Quick! quick! The light might be gone in 5 minutes. This must be what it’s like to practice triage in a medical emergency. You might only have ten minutes. Photo opportunities are dying left and right. You must do something, but what? You can’t do it all. In this case I went for a quick setup on the time laps camera. Putting it on the porch where the view isn’t the best but it still looked promising. Then I moved to a better view point to frame images shooting normal stills. I could have shot a better time laps, but it would have cost me in the variety of stills I was able to shoot.
The upgrades I installed in my computer over the last week have almost doubled its processing speed, taking advantage of this new power, I’ve put together some shmancy little presentations for you. First up we have a panorama of the Kenai Mountains and Kachemak bay. Next is a simple flash slideshow with 11 select images. And finally you can enjoy the work of the time laps camera that ran throughout the evening from my porch, this comes in the form of a quicktime video file. Sit back, let this 4MB file load for a few minutes and then watch the sunset on the Kenai Mountains as the clouds roll by.
I’d like to hear comments on the time laps video, this is something new for Scott Dickerson photography. I’ve shot about 20 of them this year and unless the novelty wares off, I’ll keep doing more of them.
This freelance photographer took the wise words of advice and made plans; plans to do something lively with the subject of killing fish. They say if you want to do it right, get professional help. Fortunately, I have several friends who have made it their profession to catch halibut by operating fishing charters out of Homer. This connection made organizing this photo shoot a cinch. In September I spent a day out on lovely Kachemak Bay with David Bayes, captain of the ‘Grand Aleutian’ and owner of 
The goal of this photo shoot was the same as basically every other assignment– take an old subject that has been photographed a thousand times and make it look new and exciting. The shot that I dreamed up was a split view perspective (half under water, half above) with a big halibut being pulled out of the water onto the fishing boat framed by the dark depths of the ocean below and the smiling faces of the thrilled fisherman above. I have a ‘surf housing’ in my gear closet that I use to photograph those crazies 
Our photo shoot started with a flight in a Cessna 206 from Homer across Cook Inlet to Hallo Bay in the Katmai National Park on the Alaska Peninsula. This aerial photo of the Barren Islands was taken as we crossed Cook Inlet. Though they are often surrounded by stormy seas, the islands look rather inviting here. Plenty of birds find them appealing also, East Amatuli (top left) is home to one of the Gulf of Alaska’s largest populations of nesting seabirds.
Our pilot landed the airplane on the beach in Hallo Bay where we hiked out into the fireweed looking for Brown bears that feed on sedge grass and salmon. Hallo Bay is a striking setting, surrounded by the mountains and glaciers of the Aleutian Range. The air was very still the during our visit and the heat of the mid August sun was too much for this Alaskan boy.
One of Homer Air’s offerings is overnight ‘air-trekking’ adventures, so the shot list included a tent on the beach with the aircraft. We had just enough light left in the day after photographing the bears to get the shot of the tent and airplane, as well as a few camping lifestyle images.
Once the sun went behind the mountains, we piled back in the Cessna and climbed to an altitude where the sun was still shining (gotta love that trick). The aerial photo at left shows three active volcanoes lined up: Mt. Douglas, Augustine Volcano, and Mt. Iliamna. Augustine has been very active lately with major eruption events in the last couple years. We also made an orbit around Kaguyak Crater allowing a a great opportunity to shoot some aerials of this incredible bit of scenery. Kaguyak crater epitomizes one of my favorite things about Alaska, until this I don’t recall that I’d ever even heard of it, if this crater was anywhere else in the US it would likely be the crown jewel of the state. Here in Alaska though, it’s just another one of the hundreds of incredible sights waiting to be discovered.
Written by Scott Dickerson for the