Be and Do

You must never stop believing in yourself. You can be whomever you want to be and you can do whatever you want to do. Simply believe! 1800 miles, solo paddle up the inside passage. Seattle to Alaska.

Picture of the Day

Picture of the day -- last year Bikepacking in Morocco. I love the reaction of the kids. B&W just works for this image. Bikes, no matter where you travel, have this way of bringing people together, putting smiles on everyone's face.  We had stopped at a little market to get some water and tea and these kids were so intrigued with both us and the bikes.  While I was on a Salsa Fargo, Richard was on a Salsa Mukluk, a bike guaranteed to draw attention no matter where you go.

Shooting Small Jpegs

Traveling with a DSLR that uses both CF and SD cards may allow you the utmost flexibility in capture format and processing requirements. My Nikon allows me to save full Raw files to the CF card while also writing Jpegs to the SD card. An added bonus is the ability to control the size of the Jpeg files, with a setting of Jpeg Small.

In my case I stored them as small jpegs that would be easy to edit from my IPad Mini and also require minimal storage requirements. For my 8 week trip I used more than a dozen CF cards but only a single 16gb SD card. I was able to use the IPad Mini to cobble together a workflow that allowed me to do basic edits and then social media sharing of images to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and my Squarespace blog.

Importing small jpegs into the Ipad Mini

I am still searching for the optimal way to do this processing and once I get it sorted out I will do a separate post on UL travel photograph with an iPad.

Snapseed (Nik/Google) is by far the best editing app on the Ipad

Down Time

I am working my way back east and will be using this as some much needed down time. Tons of images to backup and edit, a couple of presentations to prepare, and an article to be submitted. After I get those taken care of I will post my lessons learned, new images, and some important thoughts on winter touring gear.

Thanks to all for following on this amazing Alaska tour.

Gold Award for The Spare Seat

I am stoked to announce that the Spare Seat Expedition has received the prestigious Gold Standard at the Travel Marketing Awards. Richard and I poured our heart and soul into this effort, along with quite a few others. Paddling two Nigel Dennis Kayaks from Niagara Falls to the Statue of Liberty allowed us an amazing opportunity to highlight the beauty of the region and the warmth and friendliness of the communities along the way.

I am quite proud to see such high praise for the expedition and more importantly the concept of using adventure travel to promote tourism. It was estimated that our effort generated more than one million dollars worth of PR!

You can read more about the award here:

http://www.traveldailynews.com/news/article/53981/new-york-state-division-of

Photos from the expedition can be seen here: http://glenncharles.photoshelter.com

Playing with the little Fuji X10

I had the chance to play with a Fuji X10, the small, single lens camera that really kicked off the Fuji revolution. The X10 was followed closely by the successful release of an entire line of X Series cameras including the X100, X-1 Pro, XE-1 and now the new X100s and X20.... Whew, that was a mouthful. One thing is for sure, Fuji has found a niche that is built around nicely retro styled cameras, outstanding optics, and very good image quality. No camera in their line has caused more of a shakeup than the X100 and X100s, but that story is for another day.

The X10/X20 interests me as a camera that you could carry with you all the time with its small body, solid build and wide to tele zoom. The question I am asking myself is does this little camera scratch the itch of a small do it all portable camera. I will write up my complete thoughts over the next couple of days after looking at more images, but in the meantime here are a couple of images, JPegs with only slight processing. These images represent the types of captures I have increasingly been getting with my cell phone, simply because i don't have a really small camera with me at all times.

The B&W is straight out of the camera using the B&W film mode.

You can help support the site and my adventures by purchasing items through my Amazon links. It costs you nothing and I get a small percentage of each Purchase.

Fujifilm X10 12 MP EXR CMOS Digital Camera with f2.0-f2.8 4x Optical Zoom Lens and 2.8-Inch LCD

Fujifilm X100S 16 MP Digital Camera with 2.8-Inch LCD (Silver)

Looking back -- the process begins

The fun now begins anew as I start looking back on this amazing trip, collecting my thoughts, editing images, and sharing. In that spirit, here is an early image from a rare sunny and relatively warm day at the beginning of my trip. My carrots and hard boiled eggs had frozen in a mere 3 days but my Reindeer sausage was still soft. Oh how that too would change soon enough....

Knik Glacier

I had a couple of 'must do things' on my list for this Alaska Fat Bike tour and riding out to the Knik Glacier was right up there at the top. Yesterday, Dan Bailey, his wife Amy, and myself braved the barren ice and a bit of early morning snow fall, to ride out, explore and photograph the glaciers.

The trail out is a collection of beach, frozen river, glacier moraine and overgrown bush, making it perfect for the go anywhere role of my Salsa Mukluk. I would say it took us a bit more than an hour of riding and falling to snake our way from the parking lot to the frozen lake that is the frozen Knik Glacier playground.

From what I understand, each year is different, depending on weather and how much ice breaks away from the glacier face. After riding around it was clear that some of these ice bergs have been here for quite a while. We spent our time riding, slipping, falling, laughing smiling and photographing this winter playground. Once again, one of the few things that I would have done differently on this trip is to have brought either 45Nrth Dillinger or Escalator tires as well as having drilled some machine screws into my 45Nrth boots.

The ice was definitely treacherous especially with virtually no snow cover to ride on. We all took major spills, with me having a spectacular backwards fall off my bike that I am still not quite sure how I managed . Dan, to his credit, managed the most number of ground falls that quite often involved getting air. Amy who took a hard early fall riding out to the glacier won the award for the worst or prettiest looking bruise. Even with all the pain involved, it was a spectacular ride and a highlight of my trip.

Below are a few pictures, with more over on Flickr.

Imagination

Some images don't need to tell the entire story, instead, it can be rewarding to leave the viewer to their own imagination. This image was captured in Denali National Park at the sled dog kennels. I deliberately shot it this way, purposefully leaving out some details.

In Front of the Lens

I have spent the better part of my life photographing people places and things, with more than 20 years as a professional. However, during all that time I rarely, if ever, get to be the subject. The first time, on my Bike Around America tour, I had the honor of working with my good friend Andrea, of Andrea Johnson Photography. She and I met up in Oregon and did a fun shoot about touring wineries by bike. No offense Dan, but she was prettier.

Now, almost two years later, I got to be a subject for Adventure Photographer Dan Bailey. Dan is a master teacher of photography and needed a subject for a Photoflex flash course he is teaching. We decided to grab the fat tire bikes, my Mukluk and his Fatback, two small backpacks of gear, and head out into the Chugach mountains at sunset for some shooting.

Dan had us ride for about 45 minutes or so, scouting locations and light, before deciding on the appropriate place to shoot. We found this lovely stretch of tree lined single track with the glow of sunset beaming down on us. It was a beautiful spot to be, independent of the actual shoot. With his super light and compact Photoflex gear, it only took Dan a couple of minutes to set up the soft box and light. My role during that time was to shoot some stills with the fabulous little Fuji X10, a camera that is on my must purchase list for UL travel photography. The B&W pictures below are from my little Sony NEX system.

I have to say, after being a model twice, I have great respect for models that do this full time. Dan was patient with me as I rode back and forth along this 50 foot stretch of trail. At the end of each run I would un-clip, flip my bike around and do it all over again. Dan worked steadily, adjusting lights, switching lenses and contorting himself Into some crazy positions on and in the snow. We joked and laughed and just had a fabulous time.

Myself, well I am a natural light photographer, rarely, if ever using flash, so for me this was a great education. Dan on the other hand really knows how to light up the action. Below are some of the pictures I took from a behind the scenes perspective. The bottom color images are from Dan and the actual shoot.

To see the images that Dan captured head on over to danbaileyphoto.com. More of my pictures from last night are up on my Flickr page.

For more on Dan check out his website, www.danbaileyphoto.com and by all means pick up his latest Ebook, Behind the Action (http://danbaileyphoto.com/blog/get-my-brand-new-ebook-behind-the-action/)

riding the Chugach State Park Trails

Beautiful single track, blue skies, stunning views and new friends.

Alaska Flying

Trips, all about exploring, pushing myself, and making new friends. This trip has served me well on all three fronts. Last night, my good buddy, Dan Bailey, took me out flying in his little bush plane. My first time out in such a small plane, I will admit to being a little fearful. Dan was great and we explored some really cool places including the Knik Glacier, Lake George Glacier, and a stunning sunset ride down the Eagle River back to Anchorage. Wow, what an amazing time.

A good selection of pics are over on my Flickr account, but here are a few for your viewing pleasure.

The Journey

The journey is always worth the effort.