Yesterdays photos were a bit more dramatic. Even though they suffered from the same low light issues as usual, yesterday's were more interesting because the sunrise/sunset was better.


Today the clouds dominated and only allowed a bit of color through at the horizon.





Kaija the Dog and Uyaana the Boy didn't care about the weather. They were having too much fun playing around in the snow.



Here's a fabulous self portrait. My hands were cold. My hands are always cold in this weather. I have the "wimpiest white girl hands ever". That's a direct quote from an eskimo friend years back. She was right.



It wasn't very windy today....about 12 miles per hour from the east.



Here is a picture looking back toward town. None of these pictures have been retouched. I do crop them, but I haven't done any processing on the color or exposure. I kind of feel that takes away the realness of the photo. These photos....blue though they are....show the real look of the light in the arctic this time of year.



For contrast, here is the same photo looking towards town....but this time I adjusted the color and exposure in photoshop elements. Big difference...this one looks like it was taken in broad daylight...something that doesn't exist here in December.

Some photos that I took today.

My apologies....

...for the lack of stimulating blog material lately. Really, it isn't my fault, I have plenty of things to blame it on (as you can see I am not just good at procrastinating...I am also very talented at passing the buck).

First of all, I blame it on global positioning. This time of year in the arctic is not a good one for photography...at least not the kind of photographs I like to take. The sun is so low in the sky that the the higher ISO makes the pictures noisy and fuzzy. Also, the time between sunrise and sunset are so short that my window of opportunity for photos, even sunrises and sunsets, is short.

I'm not much of a writer. Sure,I can come up with a pithy comment or two here and there, but I am not the type of person who can blog on and on about anything. I guess I just feel that besides photography, I'm really not all that interesting. I look at other people's blogs and I am always amazed when I see ones with a whole lot of writing and hardly even one measly picture. I can't imagine having so many words to share that I could fill up a whole blog day after day, after day, after day.

So now that I have run out of things to say, I am going to share some INDOOR Christmassy pics because, frankly, it's all I got. For those of you who haven't left already, you lucky people get to see pics of my handsome/smart/cute/funny son, Uyaana!


Here is Uyaana at the school gym before his Christmas concert.




Here he is talking on the Phone to his Grampa who lives in New Hampshire.


Hi Grampa.

So there are some indoor Christmas pics for you. I was going to post a video of Uyaana's Christmas concert, but my old HP camera ate it. Instead you all can watch this from last year (sorry it's sideways).....



...ssshhhhhh....don't tell him I put this on here.

Wordless Wednesday- Stop

Merry Christmas

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Luke 2 7-14

.......It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder, it's the forests where silence has lease; it's the beauty that thrills me with wonder, it's the stillness that fills me with peace.
Robert Service




.

Bone Chilling, Mind Numbing.....

COLD. It has oficially become cold here in Kotzebue. None of that namby pamby -20 stuff. No, it's -33F. That's -36c for those of you not cool enough to live in one of the two countries left in the world that are still using fahrenheit. Yeah I know....it gets colder. There are places in Alaska right now that are colder. It's
-54F in Galena, -52F at Chandalar Lake,
-43F in Selawik. I have spent a week at
-56F in the Noatak valley a few years ago. In my opinion, once you pass -30 it's all just cold. You freeze so fast it doesn't really matter if it's -30 or -50. Cold is cold.






Right now we are,
* 58 degrees colder than Winnipeg, Manitoba.
* 61 degrees colder than Gilford, New Hampshire
* 65 degrees colder than Belfast, New York
* 68 degrees colder than Minneapolis, Minesota
* 80 degrees colder than Salt Lake City, Utah
* 94 degrees colder than Las Vegas, Nevada
* 104 degrees colder than Austin, Texas


When it gets this cold we get ice fog. Because I'm too lazy and inarticulate to explain it myself I am going to link http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF13/1319.html. Ned Rozell wrote this article and it is very interesting even though it's mainly about Fairbanks.


Ice fog is what happens when the air becomes so cold it can no longer hold water. There is a lot of water vapor in any kind of combustion exhaust such as from furnaces or tailpipes on cars....that's where most of the ice fog comes from.


These photos were taken at around 1:30pm. Sunrise was at 1:56pm and sunset was at 2:35pm. Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year....WOO HOO! The days will start getting longer. Right now all we have about 4 hours of twilight a day ...


....with the moon on one side of town.....


....and the sun peeking out on the other.

Wordless Wednesday- Kotzebue

Local Talent

Everybody, meet Kathy. Kathy, meet everybody. Kathy was one of my first friends when I moved to Kotzebue back in April of 1997.


She's also my craft fair buddy. We get tables next to each other.


This is her cat, Bun Bun. She's quite the princess.



These are her kids, lol. SonnyBoy the Rottweiler on the left, and Daisy the Heinz 57 Husky mix on the right. I would post a pic of her husband, but he's shy.



For as long as I have known her, Kathy has always been making something. Eskimo masks, fur parkas, whatever it is she is always in the middle of some project. These are Eskimo masks with caribou skin faces and wolf fur trim.



This summer she was working on several grass baskets. Those take much more patience than I could ever muster.


Kathy's speciality is eskimo dolls. It is what most people associate her with, that and her singing. She really does make beautiful dolls. The faces are carved from clay with beaded eyes. Sometimes she carves the faces from wood. The dolls shown are made with rabbit skin parkas with calfskin trim. The ruffs on hoods are made with wolverine or wolf fur. The mukluks are are made with crimped bearded seal hide, and the mukluks with seal fur. It takes many hours of intricate sewing to complete each doll.


If any of you out there would like to know more about Kathy and her dolls feel free to contact me.

Another Craft Bazaar

Today there was another craft bazaar. This one was in the school cafeteria sponsored by the Kotzebue High School National Honor Society. There was a nice turn out of people selling their wares.


There is my table. I was selling my prints and some of my friend's beadwork. The table next to me is my friend Kathleen Westlake. I will introduce her later.



There was quite an ecclectic mix of things for sale. There were a lot of hand crafted items.



There is a guy who makes beautiful carvings out of caribou antler.He makes really nice knives also.



This is what my table looked like when I set up. This is the third craft fair I have ever done. Before this year I have never tried selling any of my prints. I thought I did fairly well the first two times. I did really well this time. I brought with me about 27 prints.



This is what my table looked like when it was all over. Out of 27 prints I had 8 left. Not too shabby. There is one more craft fair this season next Saturday. I hope my other prints come in by then.

On a Wing and a Prayer

Wordless Wednesday

Hugo Mountain, Noatak River, Northwest Alaska.

Arctic Sunrise

These photos were taken today between 12:30pm and 1pm this afternoon. The temp was
1F and 86% humidity, that's why it was so frosty.

City Lights

I was in Anchorage again from the 3rd to the 6th. Went for a drive to check out the Christmas lights in my friend's neighborhood. Some of these people must have crazy electric bills. I took some photos but since I didn't use a tripod they are a bit blurry.