Scott Dickerson

Tag: photos

Connecting with summer

Stephanie Haynes (Anahata-Alaska.com) practicing Yoga at the edge of Cook Inlet.

The thing about Summer in Alaska is – It’s here and very real, but not to stay. I’ve been busy making the most of it, which leaves little time to talk about it. Less talk, more fun. The pleasures abound: Taking photos, surfing, harvesting wild plants, kayaking, flying my paramotor (there’s a story to tell), and occasionally sleeping for a few hours between sunrise and sunset.

I’m continuing to explore the ‘nature with people‘ concept. Below are a few recent images resulting from this desire. Thanks to Stephanie for helping create these and many more.

So, maybe this one was really from spring, but it felt like summer to us.

June 12, 2009
Nature with people – a work in progress

For several months now I’ve had a photo concept rolling about in my mind.

In words it is something like this: A beautiful image of nature with a secondary element of a person actively engaged in an adventure, fitness, or well being activity. The beauty of nature is the focus, the person is just there enjoying it in a positive way. The motivation for this creative desire comes from my personal love of nature and the adventures enjoyed there. Highlights in my life are usually adventurous moments in inspiring natural settings so this, I suppose, is a way to share that.

Danielle Thompson told me about this beatiful grass field nearby that she had hiked through a few days prior. We went back on a gorgeous December day and she got a nice running workout in and I got to work on this creative concept. Some of you might recognize this style/concept from one of my favorite photos that I posted in my recent ‘passion in photography‘ entry. The photo of the uncurling fiddleheads with Erika running by certainly caught my fancy and helped form a love for this visual message.

Below are a few more photos from the shoot.

January 8, 2009
Surfing Alaska in icy ’09

It’s ten minutes before midnight, maybe I’m having a case of midnight stoke, but I can’t help but share this photo. I jumped on the computer to check email before bed and accidentally glanced over the thumbnails for a recent surf session / photo shoot. January 5th, 2009. This shot caught my fancy, I hope it does the same for you.

It’s been an unusually cold week for our little seaside town with temps dipping below 0º F at night. Fortunately though, with the cold weather came a few great days of surf after Christmas and into the new year giving us surfers something to really celebrate.

Strange things start happening on the beaches when the thermometer drops like this. Take the above photo for an example. Alaskan surfer, Jake Beaudoin, is standing on what are normally black boulders. Today they look more like marshmellows, however as another surfing buddy pointed out, they are much more slippery than a marshmellow! What seems to be going on here is the receding tide slowly draws the waves away from the very cold rocks and we have what the local fishermen and wethermen call ‘Freezing Spray’ as the splashing water freezes onto the rocks. And in case you were wondering, yes, this freezing spray does occur on the body of a surfer as well.

There are a lot more photos to share from this last week, and I’m trying to get through editing them. Though today the cold had me distracted searching for a new wood stove… In the meantime I have some links for the curious:
– See a short gallery of Alaska surfing photos
– or browse a couple hundred Alaska surfing photos from the last couple years at my online archive
– and if you really want more of the scoop on surfing in Alaska visit another site I’m building – SurfAlaska.net.

Stay warm out there.

January 8, 2009
Thankful for. . .

I’m not much into the holidays. I remember my distaste for them starting when I was young. Life was going along so merrily then suddenly there was an interruption, an intrusion, a holiday. It was Christmas, I couldn’t just spend the whole day doing whatever I liked. .no this was a ‘special day’ meaning that there were certain things that HAD to be done and most likely my friends HAD to be somewhere doing something as well.

This holiday feels different. I’ve spent the last 4 hours alone in my house working on the computer and thinking about life, especially the photography part of it. I’m working through what could be called a growth phase, spending lots of time trying to define what I want most out of this photography obsession. I’ll post more about this soon. But now I’m just reminded how great it is that the obstacles I’m working to overcome are things like trying to decide whether I love to shoot aerials or outdoor adventure photos better.

Today is thanksgiving. I have a LOT to be thankful for. Here’s a few things that come to mind: Good, no make that great, health. Ability to pursue my photography passion not just for fun, but for a living. That stuff you might have heard about it being a bad idea to make your hobby your job, my experience has been the opposite, go for it! This last summer was dreamy, traveling around Alaska shooting photos without a schedule. Surf trip to Yakutat, Alaska in October. Financial security, I’m not wealthy per se, but I don’t have any real money worries. Each day I wake up whenever feels right, and see what the day brings. My office is 20ft from my bed, and the kitchen is nearby. Today’s visual thanks goes out to surf, and my surfing buddies, two special parts of my life. Yesterday we had some good waves, and great times. For thanksgiving dinner I’m heading over to a surfer friends.

I’ve heard that being grateful for something brings more of that into your life. So, if that mysterious power is listening: I am thankful for every wave and if there are waves tomorrow I’ll be thankful for those too.

Hope you are well. Here are a few recent surfing photos from one particularly enjoyable day in early November 2008.

A little self portrait, a little distorted but it still brings back some good memories.

November 27, 2008
Photo in Surfer’s Journal magazine

This month has broght more than just the beginning of our real surf season in Alaska it appears – Alaskan waves are hitting the magazine racks as well. Within days of Alaska Magazine releasing their issue with the cover photo of Mike McCune surfing on a particularly cold day last winter, I received a copy of volume seventeen, Number Five of The Surfer’s Journal magazine containing an article about cold weather surfing: Baby, It’s Cold – Surfing in the age of neoprene, written by Sam George and illustrated by a handful of photographers including yours truly. If you are interested in surfing and haven’t seen a copy of The Surfer’s Journal, I highly recommend getting your hands on one. It’s an incredibly beautiful magazine with an amazing print job and very very little advertising to filter through.

The photo above has been getting a lot of attention so I thought it would be fun to share a few other images from that same day, March 6th, 2007.Â A day to remember.Â One of 2007’s best surf sessions combined with a stunning winter day, beautiful green water, nice winter backlighting, ice covered beach foreground and a snow covered mountain backdrop. I can’t wait.

That wasn’t exactly what we had at the beach today, thought I did manage to catch a few nice waves in the four hours I was paddling around in the storm surf.

You can see more Alaskan surfing photos here. And if you want more, I have a couple hundred alaska surf photos online in my stock archive.

October 12, 2008