A Lost Year?
It is that time of year when photographers share their favorite images and the stories behind them. Instead, I find myself reflecting on what kind of year 2024 was; in fact, what the last 18 months have been like for me as a photographer.
Long story short, I have not been able to spend much time in the field.
Like with anything, life sometimes gets in the way of our plans. In the latter half of 2023, my wife and I remodeled four properties: our new commercial office space, our hillside home (to get it ready to sell), and both halves of our duplex. We lived in one of those halves for a year before finding a new place that met our needs in October 2024.
Then, it was business that challenged my free time in the field in 2024. At the end of 2023, Michelle and I took over ownership and operation of Greatland Graphics, a publishing company established in 1985 that represents Alaskan photographers, artists, and writers through publication of books, note cards, and calendars. Generally speaking, it would have been a steep learning curve to learn the business and get comfortable with its operations. I had been a regular contributor to the company's calendars since 2004, but being on the other side of submissions was a different animal. While I spent most of 2023 engaged in online sessions with the owner of the company, that was all theory compared to the practice of operations. And their were nightmarish battles with banks (who apparently are not accustomed to corporations buying business assets), utilities providers, and vendors like Etsy and Amazon. Hundreds of blood-pressure spiking hours were spent with those nightmares.
Fortunately, I had photo clients to guide on our Alaska Photo Treks private tours and workshops, as well as occasionally day tours when regular guides were not available. Looking back on the year in my head, I can barely remember any normal days when I was out shooting without guiding clients.
But as I reviewed photos from the year, I remembered more a little here and there of images I captured while not guiding. I think it is easy in the abstract to forget where you have been, especially in a chaotic year. Fortunately, taking and keeping photos helps to jog the memory.
Michelle and I finally took a long-delayed trip to northern Italy (originally scheduled for June 2020). We spent quite a few days in Venice before and after a five-day wine tour with Vinera Travel. While I captured quite a few photos during the trip, I can only think of three that I really wanted to share as part of this post.

We went on a few day tours when we were in Venice. One involved a tour that included the "hidden sights" of the Doge's Palace. Here, we explored the torture chambers where they questioned people who were often the worst of the worst, or in some cases, political prisoners. I found the light, tones, and textures really compelling for a photo.

Of course, a common sight in Venice is the gondola. Yes, we did take a gondola ride. But on this morning, I got up at dawn to photograph this row of gondolas near the Doge's Palace. During the first half of our trip, we stayed at a hotel that was less than a five minute walk from the palace, so we became rather familiar with the area.

During the latter part of our northern Italy wine tour with Vinera, we stayed at an incredible resort in the Dolomites. It was cloudy and raining for the entire two days we were there, which was not too bad, as the resort had an incredible spa. So, we took an entire day out as a spa day. I captured this image from the balcony of our room. I longed to go hike in those mountains and see what they looked like on a clearer day. Something to look forward to in the future.
I took three scouting trips to create multi-day photo excursion products for Alaska Photo Treks. The first one involved a trip to one of the official checkpoints for the Iditarod, the Rainy Pass Lodge. Originally scheduled to be there two nights, we ended up staying for three due to a weather delay. In fact, on the day that the Iditarod teams came through, the weather was so bad only one plane landed on the lake at the lodge (and I think that pilot was crazy). While there would normally be about 200 day tour guests there on that day, we had the place to ourselves and about six other guests in the whole lodge. It was an amazing landscape, but clouds kept us from seeing a lot of it. But the facilities, the food, the entertainment were all fantastic. We had a night of fireworks, and on the same night enough clear skies to see some aurora borealis. We had two nights of concerts by famous Alaskan country singer Ken Peltier. To learn more about joining me for a trip here in 2027, check out my Experience Alaska: Iditarod and the Aurora trip.

A professional horse wrangler poses with one of the Norwegian horses kept at the Rainy Pass Lodge.
After Rainy Pass, I spent a few days down in Sitka. One day I spent on the water with Coastal Tours Sitka to check them out for a future whale watching trip to coincide with the return of the herring. The humpback whales feed in pods cooperatively with a method of fishing called "bubble net feeding." It is one of the great sights to see for a wildlife experience in Alaska. While we had a few good encounters, I am critical enough of my photography to be less than satisfied with my whale photos to share here. But, we did determine that this was a good fit and have set up two separate trips in 2026. You can learn more about my Experience Alaska: Humpback Whales - Sitka trip.

Morning light over downtown Sitka.
In April, my third scouting trip took me to the Susitna Adventure Lodge. Located along the Denali Highway just past the Susitna River crossing, the only way you can normally access this lodge in the winter is by snow machine (snowmobile) or dog team. The highway is not plowed in the winter. But, the Lodge had recently acquired a Chevy Suburban outfitted with snow tracks, so I traveled to the lodge in style. I spent a couple of days riding a snow machine while photographing dog teams, as well as photographing the landscape and the lodge facilities. You can learn more about this trip at Experience Alaska: Dog Mushing and the Aurora.

A six-dog team mushes across the snow on a sunny day in the Alaska Range. This is one of the owners of the lodge, Paige Drobny, who finished fifth in the 2024 Iditarod (and highest finish for a woman in the race that year).
One of my favorite non-guiding photos from the winter was a drone shot of afternoon light and ice on the Turnagain Arm. We had some pretty cold weather last January, and on one day, I was out to see what I could find south of Anchorage. There were some pretty crazy atmospherics going on with the cold water temperatures interacting with the air temperature and moisture, producing these cloud spots coming right out of the water. Against the backlighting of the afternoon sun, it looked ethereal.

The next day, I was guiding a client further down Turnagain Arm, and found another scene that I could not resist. It was at a common pullout marking the entrance to the Chugach National Forest, but the foreground snow was completely smooth and interacted perfectly with the background scene.

I guided two multi-day trips in February and March, taking me to some of the most spectacular winter landscape scenery available in Alaska (there is a reason why I chose these places for multi-day trips). The first involved a couple of nights staying at the Yukon River Camp to photograph snowy trees and the aurora near there, and then three nights over at The Lodge at Black Rapids in the Alaska Range south of Delta Junction. From what is essentially an oil camp set up to a high-end log mountain lodge, in one trip.
We were challenged with weather most of the trip, having one good night for aurora viewing at the Yukon River, and either cloudy weather with aurora above the thick clouds or clear skies with no visible aurora. But the landscapes were stunning.

Burned forest along the Dalton Highway north of the Yukon River. I was struck by the stark, graphic compositions of these trees against an all white ground and sky.

When you have an aurora night like we did near the Yukon River, sometimes just one night is enough. This swirl framed in the trees was my favorite aurora image of the trip.

Normally, moose are not herd animals. They generally only gather together during the rutting period in the autumn. However, cows are known to gather in small herds as a protection against predators. Here, we spotted a group of four cow moose traveling together on the Delta River.

The combination of blues, tones, textures (both mountain and clouds) made this my favorite landscape photo from the Yukon River-Alaska Range trip.

Thanks to the super-cold weather we had in January (this area saw temperatures down well into the -40F range), some unusual ice crystals formed deep in the ice cave at the Castner Glacier. I had someone else hold a headlamp to back light the crystals so they could be photographed. While I did enjoy several of the images I captured without the headlamp in the shot, I feel that this spot of starburst added something.
In June, I was fortunate enough to spend five days base camping deep within Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve. It was my first time on the ground for a backcountry trip in the park since 2008, when I spent ten days floating the Noatak River. The opportunity came through my connection with Trustees for Alaska, a non-profit environmental law firm in Anchorage. It was the last firm I worked with as an attorney, and I have since supported their efforts by donating photography to highlight the public lands they work hard to protect. This time, they asked me to come along to document a trip that included some of their Board members and significant donors.
We hiked on average about eight miles a day from our base camp, going a different route each of the four full days that we had in the area. There were three things that really struck me from the trip. First, there was an amazing abundance (in both diversity and numbers) of wildlfowers in the area. I had never before seen such a collection of wildflowers in Alaska. Second, it was clear that this was part of the migratory and wintering area for one of the four northern caribou herds in Alaska, as we found countless discarded antlers. Lastly, we found several areas with dramatic signs of predation both by wolf and bear. There were two mounds we found that were clearly places where predators took their prey to eat, full of bones, wolf scat, and owl pellets. We also found a site where a brown bear had clearly killed a caribou, then tore up a willow to cache the partially eaten carcass for later consumption. It was also my first time ever camping in perpetual sunlight - we only had a two hour window when the sun went behind a ridge and was out of sight before it emerged and continued across the sky for the remainder of the day. Here are some of my select favorites from the trip.

Arctic poppies reach up from a stream gravel bar toward blue skies.

Mountain avens near our campsite at 4:00 a.m.

The largest shed caribou antlers we found during our hikes.

I only wish we had better light for this day. What an amazing discovery of wildflowers we had in this valley!
I managed to make only two trips down Turnagain Arm to photograph Nootkah lupine on my own time. Lupine are biennial flowering plants, so the same plants will bloom every two years. We had a prolific bloom two years ago, and again another good bloom this year (while not as strong because we did not have as warm of weather in May as we did in 2022).

Nootkah Lupine in evening light near the Twenty Mile River along Turnagain Arm.
In August, I guided a pair of fathers, each with their own teenage sons, on an eight-day private custom trip. We started in Girdwood, which we used as a base of operations for a private helicopter trip with Alpine Air Alaska out to the Lake George area, a private boat charter with Lazy Otter Charters in Prince William Sound, and some photography in the immediate area including Turnagain Pass. We then based out of the Tutka Bay Lodge for a few days, doing a boat trip and two days flying out to Katmai National Park & Preserve to photograph brown bears fishing for Sockeye salmon.

A large patch of dwarf fireweed blooms on a shoreline near a glacial lake filled with icebergs in the Lake George area.

Field of fireweed with Monkshood in Turnagain Pass.

Window through a rock in Prince William Sound.

Iceberg from Suprise Glacier in Prince William Sound, exposed for the highlights.

Brown bear chasing Sockeye salmon, Katmai.

Brown bear sow with cubs. A third cub is behind the sow.

A brown bear strolls along the stream in Katmai.

Willow ptarmigan on the tundra near hiking trail in Katmai.

This was one big, tough brown bear boar, with scars and part of its ear missing. He didn't catch much, but he was a treat to watch.

An American bald eagle takes flight from a Sitka spruce on the shores of Tutka Bay.

Choppy day in Kachemak Bay as we rode over to Homer to catch a float plane ride to Katmai.

Double-breasted cormorants on a rock in Kachemak Bay.
I had a couple other sets of private clients who I spent time with out in Hatcher Pass, in Prince William Sound (again with Lazy Otter Charters), and another trip out to the Lake George area - this time with Outbound Heli Adventures.

Okay, not an earth-shattering photo of a Hoary Marmot, but I hadn't had a chance to photograph one in years, so I included the photo. - Hatcher Pass

Helo-eye view of Lake George Glacier. Aerial photography from a helicopter with the doors off is the absolute best way to do it.

Iceberg on Inner Lake George.

View over Knik River looking to the west near sunset.

Light breaks through under the clouds as we head back to the Outbound Heli Adventures helibase near Palmer.

A large Stellar seal lion boar rests on a rock in Prince William Sound.

Another American bald eagle in flight that I was really happy with. Credit goes to the Nikkor Z 180-600 mm lens.

Massive iceberg near the Surprise Glacier in Prince William Sound. I loved the symmetry between the slope of the rock in the background and the iceberg.
In late September, I led a group of clients on my annual autumn trip to the Brooks Range. This was the latest in the season (end of September, early October) I had ever conducted this trip. So, in many ways, it turned out to be a winter trip (all areas from Chandalar Shelf to the north had snow). But as always, the trip did not disappoint. Even though I have been doing this trip for nine years now, there is something new each time. That highlights the value of repeated trips to an area - there are always new creative opportunities. One of the exciting opoportunities on this trip was to photograph Dall sheep. The population has declined by over 60% in the Brooks Range, so to see a group of eight Dall sheep that included a mixture of rams, ewes, and kids was really a treat. I also managed to finally find on our way back to Anchorage something I had been seeking for years - the perfect aspen grove. Oh yeah, and we had some great landscapes and aurora borealis, too. This year's trip will be earlier in the season, starting September 9. And for a bonus, we will have our own onsite private chef we are bringing up from Fairbanks. Make sure to join us on this year's Experience Alaska: Brooks Range Landscapes & Aurora trip!

Dall sheep near Atigun Pass.

Evening light with reflection in the Atigun River, north of Pump Station Four.

Late evening sun across Atigun River looking toward Galbraith Lake.

Aurora borealis and Trans Alaska Pipeline.

Ice and Middle Fork of the Koyukuk River with Mts. Dillon and Wiehl.

Frost and morning light along the Dalton Highway north of Wiseman.

Finally, my "perfect" aspen grove with morning light.

Okay, one more from the Brooks Range trip - an unusual shadow from Mt. Sukakpak cast on the underside of the clouds.
The remaining images in this post will be a random collection of images I captured while guiding or just out in the field. But as we transition into autumn, it is safe to say that a lot of those photos are aurora borealis. The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center and NASA issued a joint statement on October 15 declaring that we are in Solar Maximum, which means the height of sunspot activity (and that the sun's magnetic poles have reversed). It was perfect timing, as there had just been a massive geomagnetic storm on October 10 that produced the reddest aurora I had ever seen.

Sunset behind Mt. Iliamna, viewed from Anchorage.

Rainbow over rocky outcrop along Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage.

Huge red corona over the Chugach Mountains in Matanuska Valley during the October 10 geomagnetic storm.

Corona over my neighborhood in Anchorage during the October 10 geomagnetic storm.

Corona through the trees in Kincaid Park, Anchorage, during the October 10 geomagnetic storm.

Nearly-full moon rise over the Talkeetna Mountains, viewed from Anchorage.

Lone bull moose with a missing antler, coming down the trail in Anchorage.
You may think to yourself, "Carl, stop complaining. It looks like you had an awesome photo year." That is true in many respects; I know that I am fortunate to have had the many opportunities I have. Living in Alaska certainly makes these subjects and locations more accessible. But for me photography is more than just results. There is the psychological nurturing that comes from just being out there in nature and being creative. I know I did not get enough of that last year. But I look forward to getting back to more of that this year.

These and other images from these trips are available for sale in my Best of 2024 gallery.