Light Is The Story

Before you think about your subject, think about your light. In Alaska, that means knowing exactly when the sun rises and sets — and more importantly, knowing what happens in the hour before and after.

Blue hour arrives before sunrise and again after sunset. The light is soft, directional, and deeply blue — it turns mist into atmosphere and water into silver. If you're on Kenai Fjords during blue hour and a humpback surfaces close enough to show its spout against the spruce-lined shore, that image will look like nothing you've ever taken. But only if you're already in position, already metered, already waiting.

Golden hour is the other window — the thirty to sixty minutes after sunrise and before sunset when light goes warm and directional. This is when silhouettes become possible. A brown bear on a ridge, a moose at the tree line, a caribou crossing open tundra — if you know where the sun is going to set and you've maneuvered there quietly and early, the animal provides the shape and the light provides everything else.

For metering in these conditions: spot meter off the sky just above the horizon rather than the subject. Let the animal go dark. The silhouette is the image.

Know your times. Be there before the light is. The rest follows.