Bert Mattingly Alaskan Photographer

It was one of those dark frigid December nights that makes living in Alaska special. I was called out to this remote “cabin” primarily to take family portraits and then photos of the cabin secondary. Funny how we can think we have our priorities straight and then life changes them!

Some mornings, you just know are going to be special.

So was the morning of Thursday, December 21, 2017.  Looking to the sky, I could tell the master was going to paint a masterpiece.  My challenge was whether I would rise to the occasion or not. 

I think I did.

The lovely tranquility of a Turnagain Arm evening belies an ever present danger that lies beneath. While the tide is well removed, there is window of opportunity in which the earth appears stable and the photographer may venture out though always keeping in mind that the sea will return and claim what is rightfully hers.

Sometime in May of 1986

A portrait photographer continues taking pictures of a beautiful model instructing her to move this way or that way and as he moves another way a form of dance takes place. Then somehow, some way, the photographer manages to capture the beauty of her smile so completely that it expresses the beauty within her heart. Times like this, it is somewhat serendipitous that the picture is made.

I feel that way about this photo. The year was 1986. For most of the day, I had the enjoyable pursuit of dancing in the beauty of the light on the land, without much to show for it in the way of images. Then, on our final dance, as the music faded into the silence of the night, she took the lead and showed me a melody that still sings today.

I have driven past this view off and on over 30 years and I have always been amazed at how it is set up so "picture perfect" with the foreground mountain on the left, the middle mountain on the right and then the layered mountains right to left.  It’s a natural composition that is always in waiting for the right light to appear and paint the perfect masterpiece.  Of course, the light is not right everyday but this particular day, I believe the master was at work on the canvas of my camera.

This is another scene of many that have appeared in my mind’s eye over my many years of photographing in Alaska in general and specifically along Turnagain Arm. The foreground on the right blending with the background on left, the only thing to complete the scene would be the foreground. After walking many miles along the waters’ edge, I found the lily pads in the foreground to complete the composition.

Photographing a sunset is like living a life. 

For there are some days when the end is bright with colors a plenty and the beauty presented is a wonder but then some days the light is dull and dreary and the beauty is amiss.

And yet regardless of the color of the sunset, we continue our pursuit in hopes that the light will burn brighter and more colorful before the curtain goes down.

This is my first effort of attempting to record the effect of wind on the trees of Turnagain Arm.  To be clear, Turnagain Arm receives hurricane force winds on an annual basis.  On this particular day, the winds were less than hurricane force but still in the range of 40 miles an hour or more.  I’m ok with my first attempt but am looking forward to pursing more of this type in the future.

My nature is to take pictures on land – by nature, I am a land dweller and that is my preference - that is my desire. However, if I am in a plane and a picture presents itself from on high, who am I to deny recording the beauty presented!!

This picture was taken in August of 2015 while flying back from a fishing trip in the Matanuska Valley.  The river is the Little Sustina and the mountain on the right side is Mount Sustina, known as sleeping lady.  

Legend has it that a woman named Susitna belong to a race of giants and she vowed to sleep until her beloved comes back from battle and when he returns the world will end.

Sweet dreams pretty lady....

Sunrise along Turnagain Arm can be a magical place, full of color, calm and quiet.  This picture was taken at 6 am on a Monday morning during the month of May.  The salmon had not began their return to the streams and rivers of Alaska, the sports fishermen were still working hard and the tourist had not yet began the annual migration.

And so it was magical, full of color and calm.  Despite this, all was not quiet.  Arctic Terns had arrived after completing their annual migration of 20,000 plus miles and they had one agenda; reproduction.  This was their turf and they aren’t happy with any intrusion, no matter how minor, no matter how distant.  They let me know by dive bombing me repeatedly and squawking loudly.   My typical way to handle this situation is to walk with one hand extended above my head, waving it back and forth.  This is an effective way to prevent contact but it has no effect on the persistence of their dive bombing.  

It was on this morning that I came to a simply ingenious method to resolve this madness.  It occurred to me that if I extended my tripod to its full length and held it upside down, I wouldn’t have to be concerned about these dive bombing birds.  So instead of wasting my energy waving one hand 2 feet above my head, I now had the 3 legs of my tripod extended 4 feet above my head, more protection with less energy.

I considered the gaining of this knowledge a bonus to the capturing of this photo.

This picture is an example of the beauty of digital photography.  My vision was just as you see it here, and the craft of digital photography enabled me to replicate it in such a way that pleases me. It would have been difficult to produce the same image with print film, simply because of the limited range of tones.  However, with the camera, limits are expanded~!

The tides of Turnagain Arm change 4 times a day, high to low and back again, a never ending cycle caused by the gravitational forces of the moon.  This force is somewhat simple to understand and can be explained with calculations and equations that result in the exact time the tidal forces change. 

The same cannot be said of the changing of the seasons.

No, the seasons do not respond to any time table calculated by the mind of man.  Instead, the change of seasons sometimes seem to be a battle of the cosmic forces beyond.  This picture captures a little of the battle between the seasons.  The ice free water depicts a spring tide, yet the ice on the shore indicate winter may not be done yet.  In this case, I am happy to report that winter did in fact yield her hold on the land, as she always does and soon spring, summer and fall did pass.

Ah, I love fall early mornings.  A chill in the air as the threat of winter looms.  This picture was taken at sunrise with the sun just rising over the mountains of Turnagain Arm and shining straight at me.  However, with my camera angle almost straight down, I was able to capture a unique vantage point.

For this photograph, I had to stand precariously on the wet boulders in the middle of the creek.  Not the safest place to stand but in photography, it is often that the photo dictates where I stand and safety not so much.

Potters Marsh is an amazing location located just on the outskirt of Anchorage proper.  It is a fitting start to a drive down the Seward Highway with the marsh on the left and Turnagain Arm beginning on the right.  With over 130 species of birds visiting this location over a years’ time, it is only the start of the journey down Turnagain Arm, the place I truly love.  An amazing fact is that this marsh is manmade, as a result of the construction of the Alaska railroad in 1917.

August 30, 2015 7:46 AM

This picture was taken near Knob Lake on the Glenn Highway.  It was the first snow of the season and I was trying to capture the changing from fall to winter...although, it could be summer to winter!

On the far side of the western horizon from Anchorage across Cook Inlet lies a string of mountains that is part of the “Aleutian Arc”, a string of active and dormant volcanos that makes for a nice point of discussion when talking with visitors to Alaska.  Now, this string continues into the Aleutian Islands for over 1,000 miles.  So, if one of these volcanos hundreds of miles away decides to erupt and spew a little ash, well, it is not typically of concern to Anchorage.

However, in 1992, after 39 years of dormancy, Mount Spurr choose to erupt on June 27,  August 18th and September 16-17th.  This mountain is located some 81 air miles from Anchorage and is just about dead center on this photo.  The ash that fell on Anchorage resulted in the closure of the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and the recommendation that everyone stay inside. I am happy to report, that she has been largely quite since 1992.

This is just another case wherein the beauty of Alaska and what appears to be a peaceful landscape contradicts the reality that sometimes lies within.

Ah the wind...

Most people I know don’t care for the wind.  In the same way a blanket wrapped around the body can hold heat in, the wind wraps around a body and presses the cold in. So, I can understand why people won’t like the wind. Nevertheless, I love the wind.  It results in rapidly changing cloud formations and permits the visual experience of seeing those changes from forces unseen.

On this June afternoon, we were near the end of our 2 hour drive from Seward, and at 7 pm, the sun was still fairly high in the sky, typically not the best lighting for photography.  However, at this particular point in time, at this particular spot, the wind-blown waves had uniformity and pattern in contrast to the typical helter-skelter wind effect.  The dramatic composition of the photo makes up for the less dramatic mid-day sunlight.

The general rule is that midday sunlight is not the best for photography.  I love it when I can break the "rules" and make a concept work.

I love pictures that capture transition, I view them as a metaphor for life.

For we cannot have life without transition and sometimes, from the shoreline of our lives, we see the flow as bright and clear but then when we look further down the river, it can become cloudy and unclear and yet the current flows whether the water is clear or cloudy.  As a river flows from the mountains to the sea, the flow of life never stops.

And since the flow never stops, remember the saying, "go with the flow".

On studying Picasso….

I am a self-taught artist, preferring to study design, form, color, balance and the like on my own.  And in doing so, I have been free to choose who will and who will not influence my vision.  One major influence of my early artistic vision was Pablo Picasso.  Specifically, I purchased a book that showed hundreds of pieces of his work, in chronological order.  It was amazing to see the transformation from a gifted craftsman who was able to paint incredibly detailed portraits to the man who followed his own vision and became a brilliant artist.

While not all of my photographs reflect Picasso’s influence, this one surely does.  Since the majority of a landscape is visual chaos, it is the duty and privilege of the photographer to bring order to the canvas and make sense of the apparent randomness of Mother Nature.   In this photo, I am attempting to bring order to the chaos that was caused by winds exceeding 100 miles an hour just days before.  I think I succeeded. You may notice some blurring of the image in this 1.6 second exposure.  This is the result of a calmer 30 mile an hour wind that was still blowing at the time of exposure.

I love pictures like this.

Now, let me explain why I love this picture.  Most of the time, my photographs are taken on impulse based upon my past experiences with the lights response.  For at the very start, this is what landscape photography is really about, it is responding to what is presented and it is up to the photographer to discern the proper perspective, exposure, etc. for the photograph.  My ultimate hope that my response translates into something that would be worthy of hanging on a wall somewhere, someday.  In my opinion, a photograph is not a success until it is framed and hanging on a wall.  Now then, you have a glimpse into my mind.

Fear not, it is a safe place.

In order to take this picture, I had to venture out upon the thin ice to get the proper perspective.  Luckily with the use of a tripod and the modern viewing screens, I was able to let my 3 legged friend do the venturing.

Portage December 2015

There are days, days of warmth in the sun when the sky is clear and the light is pure.  For most people, these are the good days but for me, these days are uninspired.  I find it difficult to pursue a photograph knowing the light will be consistently bright.  On this day, it was like that but, since it was a fall day, I pursued trusting my muse would somehow appear in my mind’s eye.  It would appear on this day, by muse did appeared.  I hope you are amused.

Fielding lake is located in the Alaska Range about 300 road miles from Anchorage.  It is our annual summer pilgrimage and a trip I look forward to every year.

This was one of those sunsets, where the air was crisp, the wind was calm and high tides was like glass.  Ideal conditions but only as the daylight faded into darkness, this day had one last hurrah before the lights went out.

During the summer of 2016, we made a move across Anchorage to a new home, just across the street from a public park known as Baxter Bog.  I considered it to be one of the selling points for our new home.  In the same way that Henry David Thoreau had his pond, I would have my bog.

This picture was taken on the first morning that I photographed the bog.

A nice summer evening sunset.

Spring time in Alaska comes early in April with the first signs of breakup being the chunks of ice that are left behind with each passing tide.  Soon enough, the ice turns to water and the cool winter evening is remembered in a photograph

The mud of Turnagain Arm provides an opportunity to photograph a substance in color that is a close to pure black and white as any landscape can be. Simply shade and shapes.

Just outside the ski community of Girdwood, Alaska along Turnagain Arm, lies a grove of trees that are void of life due to the earthquake that took place in 1964. The cause of this void was not so much the earthquake but the fact that the ground was lower to the point that the ground in this area is now exposed to salt water during high tides.

Devil’s club is one of the heartiest plant on earth. They grow up to 6 feet tall in the shadow of the giants of the earth. Their leaf design is amazing. Since they live in the shade, they must gather the incidental light as it passes thru the trees and thrive on whatever rays are cast upon them.

Low tide at Turnagain Arm sometimes appears to be inviting walk to the uninformed eye. However, the mud is never to be taking lightly, for it is an unstable substance and with an incoming tides becomes dangerous to venture upon.

Plant life sometimes only lasts a season, then the life ends and the purpose of providing nutrients for the next season begins. Every year these plants complete their cycle. In one season…..

The mud flats of turnagain arm at first glance appear to a haphazard place of random moments changing with the tides and winds of the arm.  However if one looks closely and purposefully, the patterns arise and the photo is captured...

Every highway in Alaska has it’s own magic, it’s own history, it’s own beauty. I find it difficult if not impossible to identify one highway as being above the rest. Having said that, the Denali highway does fall into the unique category of being a remote fairway. It is a 135 mile stretch of dirt that provides extensive views of the Alaska range, as well as the Wrangell mountains. This road is also above treeline, which means the vistas extend beyond the horizon.

This photo was taken in August of 2019 around mile post 41 of the highway. In that area, geological formations of thermokarst occur. A thermokarst is defined as land that has been impacted by thawing permafrost, resulting in marshy hollows and disintegration moraines. However, my layman’s definition would be the area where lake, ponds and bogs are borne out of the thawing of permafrost. A beautiful site, no matter how you define it.

https://www.google.com/maps?q=63.124882,-146.497685

The winter light in Alaska is unique in that it only reachs to minor heights in the sky. However, those minor levels of heights provide major opportunities with optimum levels for photographs. It is indeed a mixed blessing, the long cold dark nights and short bright days.

Ah, Alaska sunsets.

They are the best. Now, many say that they have the best sunsets, but it is the northern land of Alaska that has the advantage. This photo is a case in point. The official sunset time on September 29th was 7:35 pm. This photo was captured at 8:26 pm, almost an hour after the official time of sunset! Is that not crazy! It is literally unbelievable until you have experienced it in person.

As someone who can have this experience on a regular basis, call me Blessed.

When I contemplate taking a photo, I mainly look to see what the lighting is doing and then compose my photo to complement how the light impacts the subject. I hate taking simple photos where the composition is evident to the viewer. I really do. This is not to say I haven’t taken photos that are simply beautiful, nor to say I won’t, just to say that I am looking for those images that requires a viewer to take the time to examine my approach and appreciate how the light is impacting the subject. EOM.