Where to Photograph…
March 16th, 2007 by Stacy Jon Peterson
When I first began photographing wildlife in southcentral Alaska, it was a brand new venture filled with wonder and a bit of frustration at the same time. Aside from stumbling on special locations for finding certain animals by accident, our best success was when my mentor, Eddie Fisher, and I gleaned tidbits of information from other people we ran into in the field — sometimes photographers, but more often than not someone who saw our lenses and said, “Hey, have you taken pictures of the bears over at…?”
I’m sure we’ll discover many more shooting locations in the future, but I keep remembering the days of hit or miss. If you like discovery like that — go for it. If not, then hopefully these articles will help give you ideas of where to look. If you have your special locations for photographing beavers or porcupines, for instance, feel free to let me know or leave them in a COMMENT below. We’ll gladly include them here.
I recognize that professional photographers have their own secret locations that they are unable to share with others for a variety of perfectly good reasons. In fact, I’m going to hold back a few myself, mostly because the habitat is sensitive or because the animals are being studied by scientists who prefer to minimize disturbance. This article isn’t about those places, nor is it geared to the professional who has utmost time and resources and is planning the entire trip around photography. Not that I don’t want professionals to make use of the information herein — on the contrary! Anyone is welcome to use this information. I anticipate, however, that new or visiting photographers who brought their camera to a conference and want to shoot Dall’s Sheep on their spare time will find it most useful.
I also recognize that certain locations change from year to year. Bears at one creek one year may not be there the following. That’s a chance we take.
For the purposes of these articles, I’m going to limit the geographical scope to within a 3 hour drive of Anchorage. This excludes Denali National Park (large mammals) and Homer (Bald Eagles), as well as the famous Katmai National Park and Brooks Camp (Brown Bears). If you came to photograph wildlife, you already know about those places, anyway. But a day visitor to Anchorage may not know about the local hotspots for “specialty creatures” within a short drive of downtown.
Check back soon!