Tag Archives: Mendenhall

Lunch on Ice

by John Thurston

Once again, I’m chasing the retreating ice.WA069 More often than not, there is now a kayak pulled up on the rocks after I’ve walked all the way out. It would be a lot quicker way to arrive than on foot!

In this case, this group arrived in a pair of kayaks and settled in for lunch before doing their exploring. The “rock” they are on is actually a gravel-covered block of ice. The ice will melt over the next couple of months, leaving only a pile of sand and gravel. The fall rains and winter snow will probably wash the remaining sand down into the lake by spring.

The area of darkened ice on the face of the glacier is an area where the under-ice river flows out into the lake. The in-rushing water is leaving ripples in the otherwise still lake.

Impermanence

by John Thurston

Scan000120Glaciers are slow. In idiomatic English, to move at a “glacial pace” is to move so slowly that a casual observer will not notice the movement at all. Yet over the years I’ve been making images featuring glacial ice, the rate of observable change is phenomenally fast. Even as I compose and capture an image, the ice is melting and the image is disappearing. The majestic, glowing cavern of today is the rotted, open-top canyon of the next week. It is dry open rock the week after that.

The folks at Extreme Ice Survey make time-lapse images of melting ice around the world. Two of their cameras are trained on “my” glacier, the Mendenhall, and their one-minute video covers seven years of activity. Time-lapse video is an excellent medium to convey the enormous change which takes place at a “glacial pace”. I don’t have an MF3D time-lapse video. I create still images. I offer you only a single still, and ask, “How do we identify the ghosts?”

Today, fourteen months after that image was made, those ghostly people still walk the planet. The blue palace at which they marveled melted off into the ocean long ago.

[Edited July 8, 2015 to add]

I visited the ice this week and am saddened by what I found. Because of the continued ice-recession, the walk is much longer and harder than it was a few years ago, and the destination is a pathetic shadow of its former self.  This may be the final image of my ice series.

Fiery Depths

by John Thurston

Fiery Depths

Looking down into the pits of hell, are those the screams of your political opponents you hear? Maybe it’s only last night’s burritos talking.

Regardless, I don’t want to be pitched over the edge.

TL120-55, Ilford HP5, DR5 processing (Yes, I typo’d the title on the mount, but given the scarcity of mounts I didn’t feel the need to remount in a clean one.)

Nugget Falls Revisited

by John Thurston

After visiting Nugget Falls, and seeing the other visitors on that cold November day, I started thinking about the presence and absence of the camera-toting tourists. With that idea, I returned to Nugget falls in the height of the tourist season to try to capture some Alaskan Wildlife.

I approached the project in two ways. In the first, I went among the tourists. I openly carried my camera and snapped pictures as I saw fit. I didn’t try to be obscure or secretive, and I my TL120-1 was certainly not discrete. I was able to capture some characteristic tourist activities. These included primping for the camera, chimping the group shot on the camera, bickering over the camera, and arguing over the correct way to operate the camera. You get the idea. I fit right in.

In the second case, I set up a blind on a common game trail. I tried to get my 20′ air-release to work, but it failed me and I was forced to work with a 10″ cable release.  I aimed the camera, set its exposure, and settled back onto a boulder. By kicking back on the rock with my arms crossed, I was able to hold the cable release in my fingers and trip it when I felt the scene before me was set. Too bad the TL120 lacks a motor advance or I wouldn’t have needed to get up and break my repose. One person called me out on the rig he spotted in the rocks and correctly identified the device as a “big stereo camera”.

Return to Nugget Falls

by John Thurston

Back in loop-17 (2005?), I contributed a couple of images taken from midway up Nugget Falls on the Mendenhall Lake. I liked the subject and wanted to try with wider lenses.

In November 2011, I went back with my son and we both shot some images. A couple of his shots are provided here to help set the scene. I was using my TL120-55, he was using a Canon 7D.

It was November, so the lake was just starting to freeze and the sun was low even at mid morning. He climbed up the scree pile beside the falls while I loaded film and prep’d my gear on more stable ground. Then I came up shot a roll looking across the face of the falls, across the freezing lake, and into the powered sugar covered mountains.

Stuart caught me while I was framing, so after I had shot my scenics and was climbing down, I turned the camera on him. I had already slung my tripod for the descent, so this was a hand-held shot (with neck strap).

The other visitors to the falls were a fortuitous accident. But when I saw them down below, I stalled my framing for a few seconds hoping they would spread to better fill the frame. My gamble paid off and I was please with their contribution to the image.