Last Week on Prince William Sound

[NorthernFocus]

We spent a few days on Prince William Sound last week. Following are a few images of the week.

1) The first couple of days were all rain and fog.



2) We saw a few bears that were fishing around the mouth of a salmon stream.



3) They each have a different style.



4) Oops, busted.



5) We saw a big pod of orcas. I'd estimate 20-30 animals. The adults were all business on the hunt but this youngster jumped a few times. I missed the big jumps.



6) Saw this cool tree on a rock.



7) Enjoyed this view with morning coffee.



8) And caught a few salmon.

[lovelife65]

Very cool! I especially like #6(favorite) & 7.
I'm not sure if it's my monitor, but the bear photos all look a little over processed/saturated to me, especially #2.
Really great overall though.

[John 2]

I've said it before, I can only envy the opportunities that come your way. Great series. I take it the salmon goes in the freezer?

[NorthernFocus]

Very cool! I especially like #6(favorite) & 7.
I'm not sure if it's my monitor, but the bear photos all look a little over processed/saturated to me...

No that would likely be my monitor. We just moved our household and my desktop and monitor aren't yet unpacked. So I processed these on my laptop which is not calibrated and is a bit cool. So the yellows might very well be overdone. But the warm colors in the seaweed and barnacles on the rocks are so strong that my camera was reading the WB in those scenes at about 3500K.

... I take it the salmon goes in the freezer?

About half of it is plenty to last us till next season. The rest goes to "framily" here and we send a box back east to my father in law every year.

[Manfred M]

Great images and stories to go with them, as always Dan.

The colours remind me very much of what I remember seeing in Northern British Columbia. I suspect the colours are quite close as I remember extremely vibrant colours on the rocks. I remember one of my photography instructors telling me that he had an image rejected for competition by judges who thought that the colours were overdone. His comment was that the judges had obviously never been in the far north when the flowers are in bloom as the colours are totally unreal.

[Tom Barry]

A very nice series, indeed.

[Cantab]

Dan, as usual another great set of shots. I like them all but#1 in particular stands out. The composition with layered points of land and increasing fogginess works well.

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for the additional comments, folks.

Manfred, the colors along the coast can indeed be very well saturated. And the seaweed is very brilliant yellow in some places, particularly like this location where the salinity is low due to the fresh creek dumping in nearby. On my laptop monitor they look about right which likely means that they are a bit overly warm and saturated due to the cooler tendency of this screen. Though as I said previously even under heavily overcast skies the camera read WB as about 3500. So there is a LOT of yellow/orange in the scene. Without a neutral reference and non-calibrated monitor I simply adjusted WB to the "cloudy" preset in LR, which is 6500K and +10(though I reduce the tint to +5).

[JBW]

Gorgeous. #1 is my personal favorite. The colors look good to me.

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[Ziggy]

Enjoyed viewing.

[FootLoose]

Interesting series, Dan. I think the shot of the bear in #4 works best. A bit of "engagement" with the subject.

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for the comments, folks.

Gorgeous. #1 is my personal favorite...

Brian, I suspected that one might appeal to you. Memories, yeah?

Interesting series, Dan. I think the shot of the bear in #4 works best. A bit of "engagement" with the subject.

Thanks, Greg. That was shot from a kayak at about 400mm EFL. The bear could obviously smell me and kept looking my way(I was very still), but the lure of the fish dinner overcame its sense of caution/fear of man. But regarding engagement with the subject, I was much more engaged with the salmon shortly prior to the photo and the next day at the supper table