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AFAR magazine publishes photo of bald eagles on Chilkat River

November 10, 2014 by John L. Dengler

It’s always fun to receive a magazine in the mail that has published your photos. That was the case with the November/December 2014 issue of AFAR magazine that arrived the other week. AFAR, ”Where Travel Can Take You”, is a high-end travel magazine edited for affluent travelers. According to AFAR’s website, the magazine reaches an audience of 1 million readers.

My image of a large group of bald eagles roosting in the trees along on Chilkat River is featured on the closing, back page of the magazine as the “Experience – Right Now” feature.

It’s appropriate that the magazine published the photo for this issue. November and December are prime months for seeing the annual congregation of bald eagles along the Chilkat River in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. I shot this particular photo several years ago in November. The Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve near Haines, Alaska is the location of one of the largest gatherings of bald eagles in the world each fall. In this photo (as the AFAR editors cropped), 37 bald eagles can be seen in the cottonwood trees along the Chilkat River at the confluence with the Tsirku River. The actual uncropped image continues further to the right to shows another 20 more bald eagles.

Look for this issue of AFAR magazine at your local bookstore/newsstand or in digital format at Zinio.com.

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Chilkat River bald eagle photos published in BBC book Life Story

September 11, 2014 by John L. Dengler

I am excited to announce that seven of my bald eagle images, taken on the Chilkat River in Alaska, will appear in a book published by BBC Books, a division of Random House Group Ltd. The book will accompany the BBC television series, Life Story: Many lives, one epic journey” by Rupert Barrington and Michael Gunton. The book’s forward is written by Sir David Attenborough.

Life Story, a six-part series produced by the famed BBC Natural History Unit follows animals from around the globe on their life’s journey. The series description says, “From the moment they are born, every animal on the planet begins the same great and perilous journey – life. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, Life Story is told from the perspective of individual animals, this series follows the journey from birth to parenthood.” The series, scheduled to premiere on BBC 1 this fall, is described as a ground-breaking series.

Life Story is the first BBC landmark series to be shot in ultra-hi-definition (4K), delivering the highest quality images ever seen in a wildlife documentary.

In a BBC press release, Mike Gunton, executive producer of the series, says: “I think Life Story has raised the bar again in our natural history ‘landmarks’.

“Shooting in Ultra High Definition has been amazing – there is such a high level of intensity and insight, I think the audience will see the extraordinary ways animals survive in a wonderfully new light… and of course David Attenborough tells all the stories brilliantly.”

Life Story is a BBC/Discovery Channel/France Televisions co-production distributed globally by BBC Worldwide.

The book is available for pre-order on the U.S. Amazon.com website, and the U.K. Amazon.com website. Both websites list a release date for the book of October 9.

I haven’t heard when the series airs except that in the U.K., it will be on BBC1 this fall. I will update this blog post when I learn of the airing dates both in the U.S. and the U.K. Currently, only the The BBC online store in the U.K. shows that DVD and Blue-ray discs will be available on December 1.

I’m proud to be associated as a contributor with a project of this calibre. It was a pleasure to work with the book’s editor Rosamund Kidman Cox (former editor of BBC Wildlife Magazine) and picture researcher Laura Barwick. Their attention to detail in both content, editing and design was refreshing. It’s not something you often see in today’s cash-strapped media industry. It gave me hope that the media can still do exemplarily and ground-breaking work.

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Nugget Falls – a lesson of scale in Alaska

August 21, 2014 by John L. Dengler

Scale is an important concept to grasp in Alaska. Things are big, really big — actually bigger than big. However, scale in Alaska is also not what it appears to be.

My introduction to this phenomenona goes back over 15 years ago when my wife Carol and I made our first backpack trip in Denali National Park. In preparation for the trip I poured over topographic maps to plan our multi-day backcountry trip into a part of the park where there are no trails. I carefully formulated a route over rivers and through the mountains. That carefully crafted route went out the window when we arrived to the area. You see, topographic maps in Alaska are at a different scale. In the lower 48, topographic contour intervals on maps are 20 feet. On Alaska maps, the contour interval is 100 feet. The small river bank that I thought was only 20 feet was actually a steep 100 foot high wall. Hills turned out to be mountains. Scale in Alaska was painfully learned on that trip. Lesson learned.

Flash forward a dozen or more years where I’m now aware of what I call ‘Alaska scale’. I now know that in order to help viewers of my work appreciate just how big things are in Alaska, I need to give context and clues to the scale of the subject of the photograph.

My recent post about the publication of one of my Mendenhall Glacier photos reminded me of one of my favorite photos, taken at the glacier. On one of my trips to the Mendenhall Glacier I photographed the powerful Nugget Falls of Nugget Creek as it drops down into Mendenhall Lake near the face of the glacier. Including people in the image helps give a sense of scale. The falls look (and are) HUGE!

Wait I say, not so fast. Remember my first lesson about “Alaska scale”? That same general principle applies to this photo. Things are not what they seem in Alaska.

See the tiny waterfall in the image below. That’s Nugget Falls, the same falls in the image above. In the greater scheme of the landscape at Mendenhall Glacier the falls are quite small. This scale phenomenon is one of things I find so intriguing about Alaska.

ABOVE: An iceberg floats in Mendenhall Lake located at the terminus of the Mendenhall Glacier. Also reflected in the lake is Bullard Mountain and Nugget Falls. The glacier runs roughly 12 miles, originating in the Juneau Icefield, near Juneau, Alaska. The glacier is located 12 miles from downtown Juneau. Each year, 465,000 curise ship passengers visit the Mendenhall Glacier.

To license image, click image. To see our collection of fine art prints, click here.

Mendenhall Glacier photo published in Alaska* magazine*

August 17, 2014 by John L. Dengler

I scored another tearsheet from Alaska “The magazine of Life on the Last Frontier” with the publication of one of my images of tourists visiting the Mendenhall Glacier. The image is nicely displayed as a full page image in the September, 2014 issue. The publication of the image even generated a congratulatory phone call from someone besides my late grandmother who actually read the tiny photo credits.

Previous tearsheet from Alaska magazine

Bald eagles fighting image published in Alaska magazine

The photo was taken on one of my Juneau layover days while waiting for the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry for Haines. I always make it a point to head out to the nearby Mendenhall Glacier for a hike and to take photographs. I’m never disappointed no matter what the weather. My favorite activity is to hike the easy to intermediate level trails that lead from either the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center or from the parking lot on the west side of Mendenhall Lake. You’ll quickly find solitude on the trails once you leave the visitor center area as most of the herd of cruise ship passengers walk out to Photo Point (seen in the photo) or hike the short trail to Nugget Falls. Mendenhall Glacier is a popular spot for cruise ship passengers. It sees over 500,000 visitors a year.

As I have mentioned previously, Alaska magazine, features great photography and stories on the people, cultures, lifestyles, and natural wonders of the state. The magazine can often be found at local bookstores and newsstands. Electronic editions/subscriptions of Alaska magazine for the iPad can be found on the Apple iTunes App Store.

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AFAR magazine publishes photo of bald eagles on Chilkat River

Chilkat River bald eagle photos published in BBC book Life Story

Nugget Falls – a lesson of scale in Alaska

Mendenhall Glacier photo published in Alaska* magazine*

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