Post your favorite picture from Alaska thread

[judynorth]

All the pictures are fantasric.

 

All my pictures are in a photo album and I have not a clue how to scan a picture and post it here.

 

If your pictures are digital you can post them on a website such as Webshots and then put a link in your message. Webshots makes it easy for you to do that.

[FunInTheSun03]

Myself, DH and DS will be on the NCL Pearl end of May beginning of June to Alaska will be see any bears or whales by chance?

[judynorth]

Myself, DH and DS will be on the NCL Pearl end of May beginning of June to Alaska will be see any bears or whales by chance?

 

We were in AK at that time this year and we saw one bear from a distance. The salmon aren't there yet so you don't see many bears but they are around. We have seen them on all 3 of our trips to AK and they were all in May and early June. We saw whales from the ship and on both the small boat trips that we took (Sitka and Seward). We saw both orcas and humpback whales. They didn't breach for us though. We didn't take a whale-watching trip.

[SFAM]

I hope everyone realizes how fantastically lucky they were to get these shots. We were in Resurection Bay for 7 hours and never saw an orca at all nor did we see more than the back of a whale. Same deal in Juneau. four hours on the boat, nothing. We did see whales from a huge distance but virtually nothing worth taking a picture of. I wouldn't have traded the experience for the world but not everyone sees the wildlife pictured here.

 

This is a good point. In our case, we got incredibly lucky on all three whale tours we did - to the point I'm probably spoiled and will be expecting too much next year. It is the luck of the draw. We saw breeches both in Juneau (2) and Sitka (18 - all caught on video!), and saw orcas both in Juneau and in Victoria, BC (not to mention a gray whale and some humbacks) - including 3 orca jumps in Victoria (no picture of those though - we had no idea they were coming). Here's probably my best shots of orcas from Victoria - we had like 30 mph winds so most shots did not come out:

 

 

This gal actually went right under our boat and came out on the other side.

 

 

 

We didn't do anything special in booking the tours either - all were through the HAL excursion process.

[SFAM]

 

Wow, this looks like it was right next to your boat almost. What a great great tail shot!

[sarahvch]

The pictures are so beautiful. I can not wait to see Alaska. I hope I see just a few of the beautiful sights posted here!

[SFAM]

All the pictures are fantasric.

 

All my pictures are in a photo album and I have not a clue how to scan a picture and post it here.

 

You can probably take them to your local drug store and have them scan them to a CD for you. They should be able to make them into jpg files. Then you just need to use one of the free picture storage websites to load them up and link them here using the little yellow mountain icon in the toolbar.

[SFAM]

The pictures are so beautiful. I can not wait to see Alaska. I hope I see just a few of the beautiful sights posted here!

 

I doubt you'll be disappointed when you get there. While I was blown over with all of it, I fell in love with Sitka so much that I want to move there (unfortunately the wifey says no about that...something about generating income seems important to her). Here's a mommy and calf shot, along with another mommy breech shot from there (my son actually got splashed from this breech):

 

 

[kk-l]

This is a wonderful idea for a thread. I just love all your pictures, thank you for taking the time to post them. :)

It's 73' here in San Diego right now. I'm sitting here breaking in my Polartec Wind Pro fleece "duds" and my Vasque Gore-Tex water-proof shoes in preparation for our journey up North. :D

Got to figure out how to use our new cameras...and then figure out how to get the pictures out of the cameras. But...if all doesn't go as planned with the picture taking...we'll just cut and paste some of these. ;)

Thanks again everyone.

Kathy

Whew...who turned on the heat? It's getting a tad bit toasty in here...

[SFAM]

This is a wonderful idea for a thread. I just love all your pictures, thank you for taking the time to post them. :)

It's 73' here in San Diego right now. I'm sitting here breaking in my Polartec Wind Pro fleece "duds" and my Vasque Gore-Tex water-proof shoes in preparation for our journey up North. :D

Got to figure out how to use our new cameras...and then figure out how to get the pictures out of the cameras. But...if all doesn't go as planned with the picture taking...we'll just cut and paste some of these. ;)

Thanks again everyone.

Kathy

Whew...who turned on the heat? It's getting a tad bit toasty in here...

 

Sounds like your ready to go! Just a few thoughts for anyone taking their first whale pictures - if at first you don't succeed, try try again! Our first whale excursion was in Juneau - the waters were calm as could be, and I got virtually no shot at all of an orca, even though we tracked them for like 5 minutes. My camera only could take three shots in a row, followed by a 5-8 second delay. I flat out sucked at taking anything, including humpback whale tales (I always started the 3-shot sequence too early). I finally got things down in Sitka, and by the time we got down to Victoria, I was able to take a number of decent shots from a boat rocking very hard from side to side in high winds. In my case anyways, it really did take lots of practice to get decent shots (probably the most important thing was learning to how to be prepared for the upcoming shot). So I would definitely recommend more than one whale excursion.

[diverearl]

My wife likes the shot on the left , I pick the one on the right mainly because when the Eagle flew in it backed me off my camera perch which is the spot the hugh beautiful bird is landing on then owning. My shadow is seen on the dumpster backing quickly away.

 

 

I agree with several of the previous posters it is hard to pick a favorite there are so many sides of Alaska.

[gazingm42]

Ruth Glacier in 2004.....

 

[stired]

This photo was taken a few weeks ago at Brooks Falls - 2 juvenile bears trying out their mock fighting skills about 20 yards away!

 

[ute_fan]

Pick ONE favorite picture? That's an impossible task! I've always been partial to this one of the seal sliding off his iceburg in Tracy Arm:

 

As far as sheer scenic beauty, however, we had such gorgeous weather the day we rode the bus to Carcross and then rode the train back, going through Lake Bennett on our way to Skagway. I have trouble deciding which of these is my favorite...

 

 

[mylife]

I really want to show a couple of mine, but I guess my images are too large and need to downscale, but don't know how! Now I've got a task at hand. Any ideas/hints of HOW? lol:confused:

[kk-l]

Sounds like your ready to go! Just a few thoughts for anyone taking their first whale pictures - if at first you don't succeed, try try again! Our first whale excursion was in Juneau - the waters were calm as could be, and I got virtually no shot at all of an orca, even though we tracked them for like 5 minutes. My camera only could take three shots in a row, followed by a 5-8 second delay. I flat out sucked at taking anything, including humpback whale tales (I always started the 3-shot sequence too early). I finally got things down in Sitka, and by the time we got down to Victoria, I was able to take a number of decent shots from a boat rocking very hard from side to side in high winds. In my case anyways, it really did take lots of practice to get decent shots (probably the most important thing was learning to how to be prepared for the upcoming shot). So I would definitely recommend more than one whale excursion.

Thanks for the tip!!!

I used to run into a similar problem when I was trying to take pictures of my daughter playing college ball...it takes some time to figure out how to capture the action. Hopefully it won't take too long.

I feel bad not contributing a picture...but any post is useful for keeping this at the top of the board. With any luck I'll contribute upon our return.

Thank you again everyone for your pictures, I check everyday to see what's new.

[ute_fan]

I really want to show a couple of mine, but I guess my images are too large and need to downscale, but don't know how! Now I've got a task at hand. Any ideas/hints of HOW? lol:confused:

 

The easiest way I know of is to upload them to one of the photo sharing websites (like webshots, for example). Then you can link to them and have them show up as larger size pictures. Otherwise, you're limited to attaching them, and they show up as thumbnails.

[SFAM]

I really want to show a couple of mine, but I guess my images are too large and need to downscale, but don't know how! Now I've got a task at hand. Any ideas/hints of HOW? lol:confused:

 

There's a number of cheap photo-editing programs you can do this with. Basically, you bring the image into one of these programs and use the "resize" option. Most all have an option to easily keep the "aspect ratio" the same, meaning if you shrink the width, it also shrinks the length. For the web on discussion boards, I would recommend either 640x480 pixel size or larger at 800x600. You can also take a really large picture and "crop" the interesting part and then shrink that.

 

Two freeware options to consider are infranview - which is a very basic editor/viewer program that thousands use:

 

http://www.irfanview.com/

 

Or the very new online Adobe Photoshop express:

 

https://www.photoshop.com/express/

 

I haven't used the photoshop one but it got lots of press a few weeks back.

[SFAM]

This one's not very clear, but its the best shot I got of some grizzlies we saw on the mountainside in Glacier Bay:

 

[SFAM]

Here's one of Mendenhall Glacier from behind some trees:

 

[SFAM]

And one of my fav shots, of Sitka's volcano:

 

[judynorth]

Here is one of my shots of Mt. Edgecumbe:

 

 

And another:

 

[SFAM]

Here is one of my shots of Mt. Edgecumbe:

 

 

I LOVE this shot. The clouds right above it really almost look like an eruption!

[judynorth]

I really want to show a couple of mine, but I guess my images are too large and need to downscale, but don't know how! Now I've got a task at hand. Any ideas/hints of HOW? lol:confused:

 

I think by far the easiest way to put pictures in a CC post is to upload your pictures to a free service such as Webshots and then follow the directions there for linking to the picture. On Webshots I usually check the largest size and and then copy the code for posting on a forum. I paste that into my post and the picture appears in the message. Easy as can be!

[judynorth]

I LOVE this shot. The clouds right above it really almost look like an eruption!

 

I hadn't even noticed that. I think between the 2 of us my DH and I took 6 or 8 shots of Mt. Edgecumbe. It is a beautiful subject when it is out of the clouds. When we were in Sitka north bound it was shrouded in clouds. South bound we had a beautiful day.

 

Here it is from way off:

 

 

This picture was taken from the Totem park.