Alaskan Artist - Elise Tomlinson
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Home » Archives » May 2006 » Humpbacks, and Orcas, and Sea Lions...Oh My!

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05/27/2006: "Humpbacks, and Orcas, and Sea Lions...Oh My!"


Well, we had an amazing trip last night around Douglas Island. We saw:


seal (71k image)
A harbor seal while leaving Fishermen's Bend, his head is behind one of the stays so it's a bit blurry.. (and right after that a MASSIVE sea lion but I didn't get my camera out in time, they are larger than black bears!)



adam-brian-high-noon (83k image)
Adam and Brian taking it easy.



sea-gull-mountains (35k image)
I took this photo of a boring old sea gull but I think it looks cool.



humpback (61k image)
Next we saw several humpback whales.



high noon crew (61k image)
The crew: Adam, Tony, skipper Mike and Brian.



orca-killer-whale (64k image)
Later we sailed through a pod of orca. I hate my digital camera, there is a delay so I would always just miss them when they jumped or dove.



block-tiller (57k image)
This is a cool shot I took in the cockpit.



high-noon-sunset (57k image)
Here's High Noon at sunset. That's Brian again in the hooded sweatshirt.



sunset-mayflower-island (28k image)
This is a shot of Mayflower Island as we headed down the homeward stretch.



birds3 (30k image)



1birds (44k image)



orange-sunset-beautiful (49k image)



cruise-ship-mayflower-island (27k image)
Finally, we passed a cruise ship as we were coming into port.



mike-in-front-of-cruise-ship (56k image)



douglas-pump-house-sandy-beach (72k image)
Here's another view as we neared the Douglas Harbor. The smoke is from multiple bon fires on Sandy Beach. What a beautiful night it turned out to be!




Replies: 22 Comments

on Saturday, May 27th, Joan said

How big is this boat in comparison to yours? The photography is absolutely amazing and peaceful. Take a deep breath and be thankful for where you are. (This is coming from mid 90 degrees and 40 mph winds today.)

on Saturday, May 27th, Elise said

Hi Joan,
High Noon is much larger than my boat (41' as compared to 22'). It's more of a racing yacht.

Here's a photo of my boat the last time I had it hauled to repaint the bottom.

It got pretty warm today, in the high 70s...that's plenty warm for me!

Last summer I went to DC and Baltimore and it was in the 90s and hundreds and I thought I was literally going to die...but I suppose it can be nice if you're used to it. Before the nice weather we've been having recently we had to endure weeks and weeks of rain.

on Saturday, May 27th, Dio said

Oh my... Lovely shots! Lovely, lovely, lovely... That shot of the guy with the beard with the ferry would make a great painting as it is, lovely colours, light, mood and composition. Looks like a lovely trip.

on Saturday, May 27th, Elise said

Hey, thanks Dio...coming from you I take that as a huge compliment.

I took *a lot* of photos on this trip, the above are just a taste. I don't take my camera out with me on the water that often so I thought I'd better make the most of it.

I like your idea of doing a painting of the skipper and the cruise ship...it kind of tells a story.

on Sunday, May 28th, berry bowman connell said

Wow! A show, selling prints,
and a great ride on the cold water....
does it get better'n that?
Well, sure it does.
All of yer paintings sold.

Dang! Tell me THAT wouldn't sound
nice even if it
did mean you'de have t'work
yer butt off getting a
bunch more fer the
next show....

and, my favorite shot
was the town shot...
I always did like when
the lights of a town
shine into the
water like that....

on Sunday, May 28th, Kasia said

I AM SPEECHLESS. I'VE BEEN LOOKING AND LOOKING AND LOOKING...WOW. AGAIN:I WANNA LIVE IN ALASKA! :D :D :D

on Sunday, May 28th, Howard said

Those are some really nice photos Elise.

on Sunday, May 28th, Elise said

Hey Berry, I had to shrink down that photo of town with the lights shining on the water but the large sized version looks really cool, it's my new screen saver.

And Kasia, I will admit there are times when Alaska is stunning beyond belief but just remember that Southeast Alaska is mostly rain forest, which means it rains *a lot* and I'm only taking photos on the nice days.

I remember when I looked at photos of Juneau on the UAS website before I came up to Juneau to interview and all the pictures were on bright sunny days and I felt really shocked by all the rainfall when I moved here. I mean SHOCKED. And I had lived in Southcentra Alaska for 10 years...

Oh, and thanks Howard. I think the subject matter was so beautiful that it makes up for the super poor quality of some of my shots.

Are you still loving your new camera? How is the response time when you take a photo? I have never needed to take photos of moving objects before a a 2 second delay can make it impossible to photograph certain things.
:(

on Sunday, May 28th, Jackie said

E: How cool! I grew up on boats, but have never been on a sailboat. Everyone here in WA has sailboats! What time was sunset? Must be getting pretty late there by now, since we're closing in on the Solstice!

I love the bottom picture with the pumphouse - tho the lights look like UFOs!

on Sunday, May 28th, Elise said

The last two photos were taken around 10:30pm I think.

Oh, I don't want to think about Solstice yet, I always find it so sad when the days start to get shorter...psychologically speaking.

And sailing is so different than power boating. It's so quite and smooth and peaceful. I don't like being out on power boats much, though we had to use the engine for most of Friday night's sail because the wind died.
:(
Places with lots of sailboats usually have clubs where you can sign up to crew on other people's boats, even if you don't have any experience. It's a great way to learn.

on Sunday, May 28th, Howard said

The camera's great! I've just been wating for some good weather to go do a bit of hiking and photo taking.
The response time with the camera is great. It has a continuous mode where I can take five shots in a row. I haven't had a chance to try that out though.

on Sunday, May 28th, Elise said

When you get a chance to try out the continuous mode let me know how it works. I may have to upgrade to a new camera.

on Sunday, May 28th, ann said

Gorgeous photos. I hope the experience was as great as it looks!

on Sunday, May 28th, Elise said

I love being out on the water, which reminds me, if you'd like to give sailing another try sometime (hopefully when there's more wind) just let me know. I just found out that after three summers my sailing partner moved away and never bothered to tell me.
:(

on Sunday, May 28th, Howard said

I just pulled out the camera and gave it a try. The manual says the camera can take 2.4 pictures a second. How many continuous photos you can take in a row depends on how quickly the memory buffer fills up, so at the highest resolutions that's five. If you shot at slighly lower resolutions the camera can empty the buffer as fast as you can shot so continuous mode is well, continuous, till the memeory card fills up. I now want to go find some moving targets and give it a try :P

on Sunday, May 28th, E said

Cool, I'll check your website later to see the results!

on Sunday, May 28th, marja-leena said

Oh what a marvelous trip and wonderful, wonderful photos, Elise, lucky girl!

on Monday, May 29th, Elise said

Thanks Marja-leena...I really do feel lucky most of the time.
;)

on Monday, May 29th, subi said

great great pics, O, I miss Alaska!! So beautiful!!!! I miss it!!

on Monday, May 29th, Elise said

And Alaska misses you subi!

Come see me!!!!
:hehe:

on Monday, May 29th, Judy Vars said

Ohhh Elise,
I'm so jealous I sailed everyday years back and haven't done it for years. :(

on Monday, May 29th, Elise said

I suppose you could sail on big lake though right? What keeps you from doing it, if I may ask? I think if you love it you should find a way to get back into it again.
;)