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The rains this morning were obviously a sign of things to come - Kat + I got out for a walk with Mia earlier this evening whilst it was still quite nice, but now it’s heavy rain, thunder + lightning. Mia is not impressed! The sky was definitely threatening in places whilst we were out:

I guess the locals thought so too, as there were a lot of boats anchored up, obviously not wanting to get stuck out on the river in any bad weather.

Still, the fish hut right by the river across from the school has obviously been seeing a lot of use. The smoking hut was going, the outside wire-enclosed drying racks were full, and this was the rack used to hang the nets from I photographed a few times last winter. Must be running out of space to dry them!

And something else I photographed last winter - the abandoned yellow truck starting to get buried by the long grass. These past two photos ended up having the only bits of blue sky in the whole area conveniently right behind them!

The storm seems to be easing up a bit now which is keeping Mia happy. Really didn’t like the thunder! We had to get her booked in to see a vet first thing on the Tuesday morning after getting in to Anchorage to have them stick needles in for her booster shots to get into the dog resort kennels without any fuss. Thankfully we’re picking the rental car up right away on the Monday so will be easily able to move around town getting her sorted Don’t know whether she’ll be too happy about it though!

Two days of warm + dry weather gave way this morning.

After heavy downpours, it’s now back to 70F and sunshine.

Most Alaskans are probably lying if they say they have no difficulty sleeping during the summer. These photos were taken at 12.30a.m, and there’s easily another hour or so of this twilight period before the sun will finally dip below the horizon.

By 5a.m, it will be back. These are the houses around the lake silhouetted to bring the sky colours out. It’s no-where near this dark.

Not sure how the “red sky at night, sailor’s delight” idea works, since technically it’s already morning… But, hopefully today’s warm weather is a sign of things to come

Look, no rain! Up to 75F earlier this evening as we took a walk, enjoying the greenery here by the Russian Orthodox Church.

We were then swarmed by dive-bombing mosquitoes as we headed out across the tundra in search of close-up photos of a pair of beavers in one of the lakes, but a watering moose caused them to slap the tails and head under water, hiding out of sight

This morning David Daniel arrived with an Amazon.com box - said he figured he had the right house as “I heard the man-eater when I came up the steps” That would be Mia… I think the fact that our house is the only one not boarded up gives our location away too! But, it was my new Fujifilm S1000fd digital camera. Today wasn’t exactly the best day to go play with it since it was still pretty miserable and overcast at times, but not too bad - this was on the boardwalk out to the new airport looking back on the community hall, with very moody skies behind it:

And yes, those guard rails run all the 2/3 mile out there! The boardwalk is also double-layered meaning the top boards can be replaced as they wear down without leaving a great big gaping hole like the current boardwalks do! Rated to carry 8 tons too, though what on earth weighing 8 tons would be doing driving round out here I don’t know!

Up by the airport, Mia decided to show off her newly-discovered swimming skills to Kat:

One cool feature on the new S1000fd is ‘Panorama’ mode where it will stitch together up to three photographs on the fly, creating nice wide panoramic shots. After taking the first photo, it blends it in on the left hand side of the LCD or EVF whilst you’re taking the second photo so you can line it up close, and then take the third photo in the same manner. With some automagical trickery, it then stitches them together and displays the final result for you to accept or reject. Works pretty well, and should make for some good photos this summer as I can never be bothered to do it manually. Check out this one in a larger format on flickr:

Another cool option on the camera is continuous shooting, or ‘fill your memory card up git fast’ mode Takes three photos a second which is great for capturing action shots, like Mia trying to snap at the bugs flying around her!

Back in the village at the intersection of the boardwalks, the stop sign leaning even further over after being weighed down with snow over the winter, and then a trailer upside down in the water - maybe someone missed the sign…

Very happy with the new camera, and for $215 (little under £110), it’s a steal. The major complaint in reviews about it is that there’s no optical stablisation, it’s software-based on the camera, meaning the 12x optical zoom is useless as shots turn out too blurry. Think they need to learn how to keep a steady hand whilst taking photos, as I took the zoom all the way to 70.80mm and captured Kat + Mia very clearly with no blur from over 100 yards away. All Fuji cameras including this one that I’ve used also have dual-shutter press meaning you can half-press the button to allow the camera to figure out what it has to focus on and correct, and when the LCD displays the shot correctly, depress the button fully, which I think would help some people too. When zooming right in, this helps reduce the camera vibration as the button is already have depressed and you’re focusing on the shot as much as the camera is. But, with some clearer weather and better lighting, I’ll get a better idea how well it captures colours and how sharp the photos are, but certainly seems to do a good job. The video recording move is very clear, and I like the option to add voice tags to photos so you can recall where you took it or what mountains you’re looking at - I’ve take so many photos over the years where I’ve then had a road sign or park service placard as the next photo as a reminder!

Kat’s sat in Bethel waiting to fly out - I’ve already been to the airport at 9a.m this morning after being told she was on her way into the village only to find it was a plane full of freight Good ‘ol Yute Air.

But, since I haven’t been able to take any photos recently, thought I’d play with some instead. I don’t have the money for Photoshop (or the desire to get carted off to jail like about 50% of Photoshop users ) so have used GIMPshop, based off the open-source graphics manipulation program GIMP, for a number of years. I know, I know, feel free to poke fun at the name in the comments section! This first one is isolating certain colours or parts of a photo whilst having the rest a black & white image based on this Instructables tutorial. Since I haven’t take any photos with this in mind, this is more a proof-of-concept thing

The idea works well at least. Not sure what I could use it on, but gives me something to look out for when taking photos in the future. This next one is again just playing around with different ideas + effects from this Instructables tutorial. Not the kinda of thing you’d put in a photo gallery, but some useful effects playing with layer masks and such:

Just a couple of cool results. I’ve also been messing around with Picnik, an online photo editing suite, which I’ve used for a while to do some basic editing on photos from Flickr since the start of the year, but there’s some good effects you can add like retro 60’s styling and text effects. Haven’t got round to creating anything worth sharing yet

But, Kat just got home Got the call whilst writing this up, so nice to have her home. Mia hasn’t stopped spazzing out yet either! Kat’s pretty tired, but glad to be home, and thought it was cool how much things have changed in just 3 weeks - when she flew out everything was still brown and dirty from the ice break-up and now there’s green everywhere! Sure she’ll sleep most of the day, but the important thing is she brought Subway…

This afternoon we had some pretty decent weather for a change - even though it was around 0F with windchill down to -25F, the sun was out and it wasn’t overcast or snowing I wouldn’t say I’d given up on the Project 365 photo a day gig, but as the weather has been so poor for the past month or so with only the occasional break, it just wasn’t exciting photographing things around the house or dragging myself outside simply for the sake of a half-hearted photo converted to black + white as the light is so poor. There’s also not a whole load to photograph out here after a while! So, I’ve decided to wait until day’s like this when I get to head out and enjoy being outside and taking photographs without worrying what will be my shot of the day simply because I feel I have to have one.

Anyways, a few days of snow and winds have created some pretty cool snowdrifts and patterns in the snow, burying the boats again:

With the winds swinging from north east to north west and then westerly, there’s some nice looking snow drifts with lips and curls on them (which Mia loved charging up + down and destroying before I could photograph!):

Out on the tundra, the wind had been able to whip the snow across the flat landscape creating patterns and layouts almost like you’d see on sand dunes or at the beach. Stung like sand being whipped against your face too!

Pam + Marie made it back on Sunday - I was talking with my parents telling them how the weather was horrible with blowing snow, overcast skies at only a couple of hundred feet and one mile visibility at the most when “bbbrrrrmmmmmmmm” over-flies a Yute Air plane Tell you, the worse the weather, the more likely Yute are to fly in + out on schedule! Most important thing was they brought my Subway - apparently they had good trip too

The tables got painted over the weekend and last month’s pay went through via direct deposit which means I don’t have to mess around mailing in a check and waiting a couple of weeks for it to clear. Of course, with only 10 hours last month it didn’t break the bank, but did add a whopping $7.23 to a retirement fund I guess I have.

Oh, and Janette - get back to work

The weather cleared a little today and it was pretty warm this afternoon at around 30F (-1C), so Mia and I headed out for a walk. By the river, some of the ice along the river bank had slowly melted with the soft snow coming down and warm temperatures, but it was only an inch or two deep and there was still a few feet of ice below the standing water:

With the clouds clearing, it left some pretty cool formations against the blue sky in the sunshine:

Wading through the fresh snow on the tundra after climbing off the river tired Mia out - it was easily over my knees in places but it didn’t seem to bother here! Kept getting glimpses off the village through the snow mounds where we started heading back towards the river:

The blue sky really shined with the crisp, clean snow that has fallen the last few days. The cloud formations really helped make the scene look cool:

Mia was climbing up + down the snow mounds, and as I was trying to climb up one too I ended up waist-deep when she decided to come charging down to see what I was doing!

After getting home, Mia’s just pretty much slept after running around in the deep snow for an hour which has been nice + quiet! The weather is due to stay like this for a few days before the temperature drops again, so I might head out on the snowmobile tomorrow and play for a bit.

Today was a cold day for riding. Not sure where the weather stat got 0F from, it was easily -15F (-26C) when we were heading out! After delays in the other guys getting gas and hunting licences, we headed out of Tunt for the hour or so’s ride to Eek where the plan was to then try to find some caribou. I found out that not all schools in the district are painted bright blue like here in Tunt - these were the school buildings in Eek, including the new 2-storey teacher housing unit:

Frank and I were a mile or so past Eek before we realised we’d lost Jason + Arthur. Turning round, we found them a mile or two back down the trail before Eek - Arthur’s snowmobile had problems very reminiscent of mine before Christmas when the fuel lines were freezing. After heading into the village for some Heet, it started running again, but by then it was getting on for 3.30p.m and we decided to call it a day.

Riding back to Tunt, Jason + I started playing in the powder snow and really getting some speed going. We kept hanging back to check on Arthur too who seemed to do okay bringing it back home:

I managed to play cameraman for a while in-between taking photos. It was a lot smoother off-trail even though it seems to bounce around a lot when picking up speed as I move between riders, and check out the cool cloud formations. A very nice landscape to be riding through even if we were half frozen! In the video - first Jason, then Arthur, and Frank leading the way:

Although it was very cold (I’ve got some good frostbite across my eyebrows and sides of my eyes), it was very pretty with the sun starting to get low on the horizon and the clean, untouched snow as we dipped down across streams and rivers:

Dipping down off the tundra into the streams + small rivers was also a good excuse to get out the wind which was biting cold!

We all made it back home safely, and sure we’ll try it again on a slightly warmer day! Nick a couple of the guys from the village had headed out as we were a few miles out of Tunt, hoping to make good time to Eek, but pushed their snowmobiles too hard and one broke - a bolt sheared clean off the track, probably due to the cold. They headed home empty handed too, but I think Kat was a bit relieved we didn’t return with anything as she didn’t fancy going to help out with the processing the caribou meat!

But, on a positive note, I did spy some ice fishing holes a few miles down river from Tunt, and although I thought they might be for nets and black fish traps, when we came home there was an old guy jigging. So, guess who’s going to load up ice fishing gear next week and give it a try ?

Since the photographs I’ve taken over the past few years have been well received and generated a lot of positive comments, I’ve started up a small side-business of sorts at http://www.iainfoulds.com with a collection of the some of the highest quality photos available for purchase.

All prints come presented on 5″x7″ premium photo paper with a gloss finish, mounted in a pure white mat frame and individually wrapped in a clear plastic display bag. If I do say so myself, the prints look very impressive - Kat has one in her classroom which is getting quite a bit of attention

Priced at only $10 per print (check local currency rates), they are attractively priced and available from the comfort of your own home. Shipping is free for all US customers, and international orders are only $10 (up to a maximum of 40 prints…) via Priority Air Mail. Given the exchange rate, most international orders are getting a right steal!

Browse the available galleries, or feel free to request a custom print of something not currently on there, and see if anything is appealing for yourself or as a gift - the “Yup’ik Life” collection of photographs from up here in Alaska are certainly unique!

US orders are ready to ship now, with International orders ready to go in a few days (feel free to order now so your prints can be shipped as soon as possible), and a replacement or money back guarantee is provided on all prints. More information on shipping + ordering is available here.