Hi everyone, I am Joe from Alaska!

I recently moved to Homer, Alaska. This place is beautiful. I started taking my photography more seriously in the past two years. I used to do a lot of deep sky photos, but I now find myself having more fun with landscape photography and sometimes nightscapes.
I am happy to have discovered this website. I hope to gain more friends and learn.
I also love mountaineering, hiking, and light Overlanding. I recently learned how to ski Nordic (classic). Because of it, I have so much backlog of photos that I still have to process. Haha! A good problem to have, I guess.
I am sharing my favorite nature photo. Nordic skiing is big in Homer. My wife and I attended a night skiing with some trails lit by tiki torches. We went further to enjoy the full moon and sparkling snow. I kept taking photos and would get buried in the knee and thigh-deep snow. It made my feet feel frozen cold. On our way back toward the parking lot, we came across these grouped pine trees with really cool shadows. I positioned my tripod and took a few long exposure photos even though I couldn’t feel my toes anymore. It was a cold but fun evening.

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Welcome to NPN, what a nice shot! It is unusual to see the moon so bright that you can get the starburst effect and the shadows make for a cool symmetry. I hope your feet recovered :). Im fairly new here myself but found great advice and talented eyes to help me take a second look at my photos. I’m sure you’ll find the same.

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Welcome to NPN, Joe. I know you’ll get a lot out of this group. Your first image is a wonder. I love the star effect on the moon. The way the tree shadows are fanned out really adds to the drama here. Well done.

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Hi Joe! Welcome to the NPN community! I really like your opening post. Beautiful winter scene. Well done!

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Welcome Joe! I think you’ll enjoy this community. Lots of talent and beautiful images here.
Your image is so stunning. I love it. You somehow captured to coldness of that night. Maybe it’s the bluish tone. Such a peaceful, beautiful, and quiet scene, even though your toes were so cold.

My wife and I have been watching “Life Below Zero”…people living off the land, hunting and gathering in locations above and below the Arctic Circle. What incredible landscapes.

PS - I bet you have some pretty Dark Skies not too far from your house! :wink:. I just starting to get into some DSO photography (inspired by others here on NPN). Maybe an aurora will catch your eye.

Cheers and welcome.

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Welcome to NPN, Joe. What a great first photo. You certainly live in a place where you have a lot of opportunity to photograph nature. So looking forward to more of your images, your comments on others and I hope you find this community to be even more than you expected.

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Joe, welcome to NPN! Alaska sounds amazing. Awesome night image of the pine trees under the moon.

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Welcome to NPN, Joe! What a thrill it must be to live in Alaska. I visited there a few years ago and came back with wonderful memories. I am planning to come back in the next year or so and travel farther north, beyond Denali. You will love this community. I’ve only been here six months, but from the start, I found everyone here very friendly.

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Nice to meet you on line here Joe at the NPN community. I’m sure you will find plenty of landscape scenes to photograph in your location there in Alaska. I can truthfully say I saw most of AK from the last island Shemya in the Aleutians all the way up to Point Barrow at the very top of the state and numerous locations in-between… :sunglasses:

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Hi Joe and welcome to NPN! I also like nordic skiing but I’ve never been night skiing but judging from your image it looks amazing. We’ve had very little snow here this year (Southern Alberta) so unfortunately I haven’t been able to get out yest this year.

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Thank you for the welcome and complement, Charles. My feet recovered ready for new adventures.

Thank you, David! The starburst was a pleasant surprise.

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Thank you, Steve! I am happy to be here.

Thank you, Mark! We have a milder climate here in the southern part. But we can still the Aurora. It is beautiful. I was told you could even hear the Aurora make cracking sounds up by Fairbanks.

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Thank you, Shirley! The scenery is amazing! I am certainly inspired every day. I am enjoying the interaction with fellow NPN members and admins.

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Thank you for the welcome and complement, Alfredo!

Thank you, Egidio! My wife and I have more time for each other and more time outdoors. It’s been an excellent move for us. I am already impressed with the NPN interactions.

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Thank you, Paul! I hope to visit the Aleutians. I saw a video of it, and I just have to go there. Can you give me tips on how to go about visiting that place?

Thank Tom! It was our first time and good thing there were many people. Probably having four or more people would be great to keep wild animals at bay :smiley: Hope you get more snow!

Hi Joe, sorry to say as things have changed so dramatically around the globe I really do not know how to go about visiting much of any locales these days. My travels to the Aleutians was on military aircraft as I was assigned to an engineering crew working on the DEW Line (Distant Early Warning) . Most of that radar detection is now all relegated to satellite protection. I spent 2 months on Shemya and almost 2 months at Cold Bay back in those days… :cowboy_hat_face: