Robert Arrington Photography

Nome, Alaska: Last Train to Nowhere, by Robert Arrington on Flickr.

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.” -Robert W. Service

A few miles down the Bering Sea from Nome lies a vivid memory of her Gold Rush journey boom to bust. Scattered across the Tundra is a graveyard of locomotive engines that the locals call the “Last Train to Nowhere.”

The trains were built from 1881 to 1886 and were retired engines from the New York Elevated rail system. They arrived in Nome by Steamer in 1903 and were intended for a railway to connect newly sprouted gold mining camps. But as the gold rush faded debts crushed the fledgling railroad and construction soon came to a halt. Today the rusted locomotives lean heavily in the tundra just a few yards from the icy Bering Sea. If you lean into the wind at just the right time you can almost hear the train’s whistle cutting through the air.

Solomon, Alaska: After the Gold Rush on Flickr.

The landscape surrounding Nome Alaska is littered with the wreckage of its gold rush past. 19th Century Gold Dredges lie in ruins throughout the vast arctic wilderness and tell a silent story of boom to bust. The dredges are so well preserved because they lie in a frozen state for most of the year, revealing their secrets slowly and briefly in a land forgotten by time.

This photo is an HDR shot of 12 images taken in Solomon, Alaska.

Nome, Alaska: Helios Descends at Midnight, by Robert Arrington on Flickr.

This is a second image of the fishing hut on Safety Sound as the midnight sun touches the horizon.

This HDR photo was taken just before midnight on Wednesday July 27, 2011. Nome is located in Northwestern Alaska and lies just below the Arctic Circle so the summer days are long and lingering and summer sunsets last for hours.

The image is an HDR composite of 3 bracketed shots. Safety Sound is a little-known, accessible part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and hugs the coast of the Bering Sea.

Nome, Alaska: Sunset on Safety Sound, by Robert Arrington on Flickr.

A rustic weathered fishing hut greets the midnight sun on Safety Sound, 20 miles east of Nome, Alaska.

This photo was taken at exactly 12am Midnight on Wednesday July 27, 2011. Nome is located in Northwestern Alaska and lies just below the Arctic Circle so the summer days are long and lingering and summer sunsets last for hours.

The image is an HDR composite of 3 bracketed shots. Safety Sound is a little-known, accessible part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and hugs the coast of the Bering Sea.

Vancouver, BC: Science World, by Robert Arrington on Flickr.

Vancouver, BC: Science World, by Robert Arrington

Every once in a while you get lucky with a photograph and this is one shot that reflects that luck. It was pouring with rain when I visited the Olympic Village in Vancouver to photograph the lights of the Science World dome and the waters of the bay were a muddled mess. But a few minutes later the rain stopped and the water settled just long enough to allow me to photograph this perfect calm reflection. Minutes later it started to rain again and the mirror was gone. This captures the true essence of photography - savoring life one precious moment at a time.

Vancouver, BC: Olympic Village, by Robert Arrington on Flickr.

Vancouver, BC: Olympic Village, by Robert Arrington

This photo is taken from Athlete’s Way at Vancouver’s Olympic Village. The neighborhood looks out out across a giant steel cable bridge and beyond that the BC Place Stadium and the Plaza of Nations. The roller coaster style steel bridge was magnificently suspended above the water it cast a perfect reflection. Another enjoyable night scene taken as an HDR using 6 images to create this final result.

Journey’s End: Anchorage Alaska, by Robert Arrington on Flickr.

This photograph has a great deal of personal significance for me as it was taken on December 21, Winter’s Solstice, the shortest day of the year. That may not be a major event if you live in the lower 48 but for Alaskans it marks the point in the year where the daylight begins to increase. I call this day the “first day of summer” and for the first few weeks we gain only a handful of seconds or minutes in a day, but by April the days are so long that at 10pm it is still twilight in Anchorage.

This photo also has a symbolic significance for me, hence the title, “Journey’s End.” The photo symbolizes the end of a long journey across the flatirons of winter with little warmth or sunlight. For me it was the journey of going through cancer and surviving that ordeal and finding myself awakening to the “first day of the rest of my life.”

Many people have told me that they are drawn to this image emotionally but they are not quite sure why, but by reading this you will hopefully understand why. The journey of a cold dark night ends on winter’s solstice with the rising sun gaining in power and strength. It is time to look ahead and not behind you, to move forward and not backward and to be grateful for the present moment.

Remember two steps forward and one step back is still one step at a time.

Matanuska Glacier, Alaska: Fire on the Ice on Flickr.

This is an HDR photo of the sunset on Matanuska Glacier taken around 11pm. This shot was composed using multiple bracketed shots on a tripod.

Alaska is a photographer’s paradise, especially in the summer when “magic hour” can last literally all night. At the height of summer the sun, distracted by the beauty of all that lies below, forgets that she is supposed to set and instead lingers in the sky until she is transformed from sunset into sunrise. For photography it is a great joy to have so many hours of golden light.

On this particular evening on the glacier I waited until this magic moment to capture the image of the evening sun shimmering on the translucent ice. The park had already closed and I was literally the very last person on the glacier that evening, making for some hauntingly beautiful memories. Walking on glaciers can be disorienting, especially at dusk so I wanted the horizon line to be slightly tilted to give the viewer that sense of other-worldliness.

Matanuska Glacier Alaska: Surface of Reality, by Robert Arrington on Flickr.

I have a saying that life begins the moment after seeing your first glacier. It is such a jaw-dropping, heart-stopping, humbling experience to behold the ice blue wonder of these constantly moving sentinels of ice. Fortunately I happen to live within a short drive of these marvelous wonders of nature. Alaska’s Matanuska Glacier is the only glacier in Alaska where you can drive your car right up to its edge and hike as far as your courage will allow.

This image was taken in the summer of 2010 around 11pm as the last dying embers of the midnight sun were setting below the horizon. The melting glacier formed a pool of water that was so pristine it was hard to see where the glacier ends and its reflection begins, hence my title, “Surface of Reality.”

This image was taken on a tripod and is an HDR composite of 6 bracketed exposures.

Carlsbad Caverns New Mexico: The Big Room, by Robert Arrington

Ansel Adams once remarked that Carlsbad Caverns was the most difficult place he ever photographed, owing  to the fact that in their natural state, the caverns exist in absolute darkness and are visible only by means of artificial lighting. Try to imagine the early explorers stumbling upon the caves and descending hundreds of feet below by way of a wooden ladder and a wax candle as their only source of light. 

This is an HDR photograph of several magnificent limestone cavern formations in the Big Room. At nearly 4000 feet long, this is the largest cavern chamber in Carlsbad Caverns and the 7th largest in the world.