February in Alaska. Ever heard of Cabin Fever?
That’s what someone is said to have when they do curious things in the dark and cold of winter. Normal things would include carrying wood from the woodpile to the fireplace, talking to your friends about how stupid ‘The Deadliest Catch’ is, but how you watch it anyways, or spending all the money you made commercial fishing on espresso beans to keep you from hibernating. If you happen to be up late at night on one of those long winter nights keeping the fire going and see your neighbor stumble from his house at 5am in a skin tight black suit carrying what looks like a silver body bag you can safely assume he’s off to do some self medication for his cabin fever. Off to Bear Glacier, which is at least a three hour drive and a 45minute boat ride from anywhere, unless you live in Seward, Alaska.
Last winter a few of the local surf crowd headed to the glacier for a real alaskan winter surf experience. We left home at 5am so we could be waiting at the boat when Capt. Scott showed up at first light. After pouring a couple gallons of antifreeze coolant in the right main we where on our way, all wondering if the engine was actually going to need any ‘coolant’ with the air temps far below freezing.
As we approached Bear Glacier we were engulfed in a golden fog, and greeted with a decent 3-5ft swell rolling in from the Gulf of Alaska. Everyone suited up and jumped in the water as if they had mistaken Bear Glacier for a coral reef in indonesia. I was thinking about that science experiment when I learned that salt water can be below 32F and still not freeze. I guess I should have just been thankful we were surrounded by saltwater allowing us to use our surfboards instead of ice skates. After five months of refrigeration, the water in Resurrection Bay was cold.
Looking at the back side of the waves peeling along in nice rights I had to remind myself that this was a business trip, the surfing could come after the photos. If I would have known then that camera focus issues were going to make 99% of the shots useless, I would have happily left the camera behind and went for a good sloshing in the super cold cycle. However, I needed to learn this lesson, the one about taping the focus ring to keep it from shifting. The lesson was certainly burned into my memory when I returned home and looked at all those smiling faces with incredible snow capped mountains in the background. I think they were smiling anyway; mostly they were just black blobs in a sea of green with a background of white and blue. I clearly remember thinking how incredible these shots were going to be as I happily snapped away, consoling my aching desire to surf by promises of becoming rich and famous from these photos. As chance would have it, a few of the photos taken in the surfhousing did turn out, but I’m still waiting for the rich and famous stuff.
When I was finally sure I had captured the award winning photos in both horizontal and vertical the camera was put away and I started surfing. On the first wave I stumbled off the board and was promptly pinned to the bottom of a swirling ice cream headache. After several short eternities the light appeared again and I found myself thinking about how nice it was taking pictures instead of swimming for my life with a throbbing headache.
Bear Glacier was kind enough to teach me two important lessons: Tape the lens focus in place if you are going to use manual focus in a surfhousing without a focus ring. And if you can hold your breath for 60 seconds underwater in the pool, you might hope for six to seven seconds at Bear Glacier in February.
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.
One of the best things about surfing in Alaska is the great spirit out on the water. Some would say it’s because misery loves company. Whatever it is, we make quick friendships sitting out there in the water, freezing together as we wait for that perfect swell. It might be just because there are so few of us that we band together due to a preservation instinct. I think there is also an element that comes when you are in the water shaking with hypothermia, you definitely hope that anyone around is your friend, and will help you get out of your wetsuit if you are too cold to open the zipper yourself. We still call each other when the waves are firing, and try desperately to get at least one other person to share the experience with us. I must say though, I’ve heard rumors of crowds in one surfing spot in southeast Alaska.
For a few winters I’ve been throwing the camera in the car on my way to the beach, and until last winter that’s mostly where it stayed. It’s difficult to surf and photograph on the same trip to the beach. If I go surfing first, then my hands are numb, my body shaking, and the only thing on my mind is a hot shower. If I photograph first, then I get too cold standing on the beach and the last thing I want to do when I’m that cold is jump in the water. So needless to say, a lot of amazing surf sessions passed undocumented. This last winter though, I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I was finding myself out in the water on picture perfect days wishing I was on the beach with the camera. It can just be so overwhelmingly dramatic surfing here sometimes that I had to do something about it. So this winter I started leaving the surfboard on the car and just photographing. I think it paid off, though I missed some great waves, I’ve got photos to show how nice they were. And I’ve got some happy surfing buddies. Sure they missed my company in the water, but nobody minds seeing a photo of themselves getting barreled outside the ice pack with snow covered mountains in the background. (Thanks to Donna Rae Faulkner for the photo of me photographing surfers on the icy beach)
This last winter offered some great surfing photo opportunities with lot’s of ice on the beaches and some really nice waves. I spent most of the best surf days standing on the beach bundled up wearing a fur hat with holding frozen cameras. These photo shoots are not particularly technically challenging, it is mostly about being there at the right time and knowing the subject. The photographic challenges mostly involve keeping the cameras warm enough to operate and having enough batteries to make it through a good session. Mostly when I’m photographing surfing in Alaska I try to focus on what makes this special. People are surfing gorgeous green waves the world-round, so what makes Alaska so special? I try and show those elements that make surfing in Alaska unique – ice, snow covered mountains, snowy beaches, uncrowded breaks . . .