Alaska is vast, often uninhabited, staggeringly beautiful, and richly diverse in photographic subject matter. During the summer of 2002, my wife and I explored this largest state in the United States for the first time. I photographed in such places as Talkeetna, Denali National Park, Tangle River, Chitina, Wrangell-St.Elias National Park, McCarthy, Kennecott, Valdez, Prince William Sound, Whittier, Seward, Kenai Fjords National Park, and Hope. I enjoyed these unique photographic opportunities as part of a week-long, ten person van tour with Hope's "Adventure Alaska", which began and ended in Anchorage.

Next we traveled on to Nome and the Bering Sea, where we boarded the expedition ship "New World Discoverer" to photograph nature and wildlife subjects on frequently fog shrouded Alaskan islands such as the Diomedes, St. Lawrence, St.Matthew, Hall, the Pribilofs -- all the way out to the islands at the very end of the vast Aleutian chain -- Kiska and Attu.

The New World Discoverer, operated by Society Expeditions, is a small but elegant ship. Unlike most Alaskan cruise ships, this one carries just 150 travelers. It goes to places where tourists seldom visit -- places that are hard to reach, difficult to land on, often obscured by the fog and mist. Few of our Alaska destinations offered piers or ports. Donning high boots and waterproof pants, we were carried to "wet landings" via motorized "Zodiac" pontoon rafts. Our particular sailing was also unique in that it would be the first time that any cruise ship has circled the vast Bering Sea. Not only did the New World Discoverer cruise to some of Alaska's most far flung island outposts for a week -- it also continued on to explore the islands and bays of Siberia's seldom seen Kamchatka and Chukotka peninsulas for two additional weeks, eventually winding up back in Nome after three weeks of sailing the storied waters of the Bering Sea. Accompanying us were anthropologists, biologists, historians, and botanists, whose lectures and insights illuminated the meaning of what we were seeing and photographing.

(To see the story and pictures I made during the New World Discoverer's two weeks in Russian waters, you can view my article "Kamchatka & Chukotka: Russia's Far East" on worldisround.com. Go to: http://www.worldisround.com/articles/12056/index.html)

Making this adventure even more valuable to me was an on-board three week nature photography workshop put together by Wilderness Travel, the company that arranged this cruise for us. The workshop was open to 40 of the ship's most avid image makers, and proved to be a very intensive and productive experience. Not only were we blessed with abundant wildlife and nature subjects in spectacular settings, but we were working under the guidance of two of the best known nature photographers in the world, Frans Lanting and Galen Rowell. Sadly, this would be the last of Galen's valuable contributions to the photographic community. He and his lovely wife Barbara tragically lost their lives in a small plane crash while flying home from our workshop -- a shattering loss for all of us on this cruise, as well as to all who value nature photography. I dedicate both this article, as well my worldisround.com article on the Russian portion of this expedition, to their memory. I shall always cherish the knowledge and insights that both Galen Rowell and Frans Lanting offered us in their shipboard lectures and while shooting in the field. Their workshop has forever enhanced my photographic vision. As a photographic workshop director myself, I am sure that this experience will also have significant impact on my own teaching abilities.

In this article, I am sharing 91 of my favorite Alaskan images with you. They represent my feelings about what I saw and learned while traveling through the back roads of the state's interior as well as cruising among it's often haunting and mystical islands. During two weeks of shooting in Alaska, I made about 1,500 images on my Canon G2 four megapixel digital camera. Digital photography, unlike film photography, offers us the chance to use each image as a learning experience. As such, I shot most of my pictures as small steps along the road to my ultimate results. I chose to keep only about ten per cent of what I shot - - 150 pictures -- and you will see a just over half of those with this article. I also made frequent use of Photoshop -- not to "manipulate" my photographs, but rather to simply enhance them.

Enjoy, and if you have any questions or comments, I'd appreciate it if you would share them with us here, or send them to me via an email message. Thanks.

Phil Douglis Director, The Douglis Visual Workshops Phoenix, Arizona pnd1@cox. net