Alumni & Friends
This last Saturday, Heather and I volunteered to assist the UAS Alumni & Friends Golf Tournament in Haines. We would meet an Allen Marine boat in the morning, load up, and then head towards Haines to play on their 9-hole course. We’d have lunch waiting for us at the course and the golfers would set off to their ways. Dinner would be served during the return trip to Juneau. And, because we’re in Southeast Alaska waters, the likelihood was high to make a couple of stops for wildlife along the way.
As a volunteer, my primary duty was to be a schlepper of stuff (golf bags, coolers, etc, etc), but at the last minute I realized that I could serve in an additional capacity: with my camera! I decided that I would photograph the earlier parts of the day and then for the boat ride home, I’d have a slideshow rolling to let people look back on the day. Easy right?
In retrospect, everything went pretty darn smoothly. I culled to somewhere around 100 photos on my laptop, set up a flatscreen TV (secured with all sorts of tape), and got the show rolling just as passengers were loading back on the boat. The show was well received, and seemed to make for a fun conversation piece. Anyhow, I thought I’d share all of the images from the collection. See the rest of the photos after the jump.
Enjoy!
Impromptu Whale Watching
Tuesday at around 11:30 I got a call from Jayleen with an invitation to join her on her boat to take in the local sights for a whale-watch adventure. Not one to turn down a chance to get out on the water and spend some quality time with good people, I made it work with my office and sped out the door to run home for a camera before heading to Auke Bay.
The whales were fairly active but often elusive and scatter, but I had the most fun watching the sea lions anyhow. They always seemed intrigued with the boats and would at times pop up fairly close to take a look. Here are a few keepers from the day – you can see the rest here:
http://photos.codyjbennett.com/fine-art/2012/
This is what a 300mm with a 2x telextender on a DX body looks like... CLOSE!
Early Morning Outing
A couple weeks back I had planned to get up early in order to catch the deep cobalt blue of the sunrise on a lovely Saturday morning. I had looked at my favorite photography app (LightTrac) and determined a best-case-scenario for some excellent sunrise with substance photos.
Anyhow, I arrived at the Fisherman’s Bend dock in Auke Bay hopeful of the specific hue of blue I had been dreaming about, but alas it was too late in the morning to have the darkness I needed. Maybe these things are meant for sunsets alone?
Anyhow, not to be outdone by mother nature, I took a few shots in hopes that maybe I would come up with an HDR image of the sunrise that I as proud of… Not so much. But, the good news is that I enjoyed my quiet (and cold) morning out, and maybe next time I’ll be better prepared to get up earlier!
The one shot I did come away with follows. It is the combination of three images, processed first for noise in Nik’s Dfine, and then secondly in PhotoMatix Pro (a recent acquisition I’m pretty excited to play with!)
Windfall Hike
Last night, after work, I took off as quickly as possible to catch up with Paul and a few students from UAS Housing. As a “Residence Life Coordinator” he pulls together random activities which always seem like a blast, though I can’t often make. This time I was finally able to join in the fun. There were 10-15 students who were going to spend the night at the Windfall Lake Cabin, and then hike out the next day. I planned to hike back that same night, which worked out well because Bob decided to head back early so I was able to make a new friend on the return hike!
It was lots of fun, and of course, I brought a camera. Here are a few shots…
