Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park’s “The Mittens” silhouetted under the August Milky Way. Composite image created from two frames. Milky Way image made the previous evening outside of Page, Arizona.

Made on a week-long car trip through Nevada, Utah and Arizona. August 2010.

Brown pelican diving for Pacific Ocean fish at Stinson Beach, Marin County, California. July-August 2010.

Wildlife Images from Alaska’s Inside Passage from Stephen Lefkovits on Vimeo.

Those of us from Down Below frequently refer to “Alaska” as if it were a single place or eco-system. Alaska is as big as the 11 central plains states and is at least as varied and diverse as the region from Oklahoma to North Dakota. The Inside Passage is part of a coastal system that extends from Puget Sound in Washington state to Anchorage, a 3,500 mile arc along the Pacific and the Gulf of Alaska.

To an outsider, one of the most striking features of this landscape is the profusion of fish – specifically salmon – in these waters. Salmon are a predictor of healthy habitat as they require clean, oxygenated water as well as several different types of food (plankton, kelp, seaweed, insects, and crustaceans) to thrive.

In turn, salmon are a key protein source for mammals (whales, bears, humans) and predatory birds like eagles.

Seen from sea level in an 18-foot fishing boat, the Chatham Strait and the islands like Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagof are of enormous, intimidating scale. The islands are mountains that extend a thousand feet below the clear water’s surface. Without roads, buildings or skyscrapers, the landscape dwarfs man and makes it apparent just how tenuous is our place in this environment.

This collection of images is during a week’s visit in July of 2010 to Whalers Cove Lodge on Killisnoo Island in the Inside Passage. Killisnoo neighbors Admiralty Island. Together, they are south of Glacier Bay National Park and Haines, Alaska. With the help of expert guides I got to see excellent examples of the diversity of life in the area. A week is not enough to gain a complete picture of behavior, but provided a good sampling of the area.

Thank you to the owners and staff of Whaler’s Cove Lodge in Angoon, Alaska for their kind hospitality and guiding. WhalersCoveLodge.com.

For prints and image usage rights please contact steve@pacific-landscapes.com.

The summer Milky Way in the Northern Hemisphere including the Lagoon Nebula, Scorpius Jewel Box and the Rho Oph nebula. Single frame processed in Lightroom and Photoshop. Image made using a modified Canon 40D with a 17-35mm lens on an Astrotrac TT320X polar mount. Seen from New Mexico Skies.

The magnificent summer sky’s Milky Way, seen from Elephant Butte State Park, New Mexico. Had to leave when I realized I was in the middle of three different packs of coyotes howling from a distancr at 2 AM. They may have been far, but being triangulated made me feel like prey.

A sky full of stars over the Pacific Ocean seen from Stinson Beach during Memorial Day weekend, May 2010.

Sunset after a February storm, seen from the Berkeley Hills looking toward San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. HDR image captured while the time-lapse camera setup was clicking away.

This image is reminiscent of one from last year from same spot at same time. As these storms clear I’ll be looking for more broken cloud imagery from interesting places.

Feb. 9, 2010.

Clouds part as they cross the Golden Gate, providing a silver lining to the spate of storms that have run across Northern California in the last week.

This is an HDR image made using three frames, bracketed +-2 EV, and composited in Photomatix.

Muir Woods on a foggy morning in January, 2010.