Cloud Art in Gates of the "Art-ic" - umm Arctic - National Park

View a collection of my favorite artistic photographs from above the Arctic Circle in Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska.

If you have read my recent blog post, A Week in the Life: Gates of the Arctic National Park, you will have an understanding of how varied, fast changing, and sometimes difficult the terrain is in Alaska.  In a matter of 15 minutes we could be hiking on a game trail, fighting through dense brush, accessing a gravel bar, crossing a river, picking through tussocks and wet sponga, and then finally locating a piece of dry hardpan tundra for easier walking.  We had fantastic weather for the majority of our trip.  It was unusually sunny and warm for the first four days.  On our last three days the temperature cooled down and it rained lightly on a few occasions.  It is only fair that nature gave us a true taste of Alaskan weather to end our trip and just enough opportunity to prove our gear against the cold, rain, and wind.  

Needless to say, taking time to compose the perfect, artistic shot while navigating these elements was not on the top of my priority list.  I mostly defaulted to "point and click" photography to capture the moments as best as possible as we moved through the landscape.  Luckily the landscape is so beautiful that the scenes simply unfolded in front of me!  All I needed to do is point and click.  To read my full thoughts on the subject of photography, check out the previous Smartphone Photography blog post.

When the weather shifted towards cloudy and rainy it struck me how the look and feel of the landscape also changed.  The clouds cast a different lighting on the mountains.  They sometimes created a dark, moody vibe.  They sunk deep into the valleys covering the peaks and limiting our visibility.  Other times they seemed to dance in the sky, changing rapidly with pockets of blue opening and closing between the white.  Cloud Art - I will call it.  Check out a few of my favorite artistic shots from these last two days of our trip in Gates of the "Art-ic" - umm Arctic - National Park.