From Glacier Bay we turned back southward to Ketchikan, AK. We arrived at Ketchikan early on Friday, May 23rd, for a scheduled six hours port call. I could have spent more time at Ketchikan…days even.
Ketchikan dates back to the late 1800s and is know as the salmon capital of the world. It is also known as a paradise for naturalist and sport fishermen alike. This is easy to understand once you’ve seen the area.
While Glacier Bay has a tremendous natural beauty, it’s also so severely rugged and harsh that life there would always be a struggle. Trees fight for their purchase, clinging to lower altitudes and sparse rocky soil. Wildlife would find existence at Glacier Bay no easier.
At Ketchikan there’s a similar but more subdued natural beauty. While it has its share of ruggedness, life seems to have adapted more readily to the less harsh environment. Forest stand thick with trees, waters are full of fish and the land and ski are full of wildlife.
Our “big adventure” for Ketchikan was a float plane flight to glacial formed Misty Fiord. The flight included a landing in the Fiord with a short photo opportunity from a floating platform. This float plane experience was outstanding and gave us a wonderful overview of the area.
Oh, by the way, I now can add float plane flight to my list of first. :-)
To this point I’ve shot over 4,300 photos. I would normally expect about 80-90% of the photos to “wash out.” By “wash out” I mean photos that can be immediately deleted or archived because they’re not very good, have a flaw or are a near duplicate of a better, similar photo. The subject matter of many of these Alaskan photos is so spectacular that the “wash out” rate may not be as high. I do expect when all my filtering workflow is complete I’ll have less then 1,000 photos I like and well less then a hundred that I’d consider to be the best.
Thank goodness this is digital and not film! ;-)