Mentor Trek Day 3 – Supposed to be Float Plane Day

Saturday was the day that the gang would fly in groups of 6 -10 in small float planes up to Taku Glacier Lodge, deplane, take pictures, and enjoy what was billed as some of the best wild Alaskan salmon they would ever have. But, Saturday, while it wasn’t raining, turned out to be the foggiest day of the week and the flights were cancelled. As previously mentioned, Noel was going to do this part of the trip, but within 20 minutes of leaving the hotel room, he was back. I had settled in with Robbie and was writing postcards when he returned and said they were instead going to have some “digital review sessions” in the conference room while the coordinators threw another shoot together. I grabbed my notebook and headed down, as Noel wanted to get me as much exposure to the digital sessions as possible. It kind of backfired on him. Instead of getting into Photoshop, I became fixated on another Adobe digital editing tool – Lightroom – which has some of the basic editing features but none of the heavy hitting features of full-blown Photoshop. But I digress. Here’s where I need to give special props to the Gastineau Guiding tour group. Our coordinators called the owner immediately upon learning the float planes were cancelled. He found a bus for us and personally drove us to Douglas Island, over to a small park with a trail through a rain forest that leads to the water’s edge along Gastineau Channel. All of this on his Saturday off, and he missed his son’s soccer game! This also turned out to be one of my favorite shoots. Down near the water, I put on my macro lens and took some shots of the greenery on the edge of the forest, and on my way back through the rain forest to the bus, I snapped these shots looking up through the tree canopies.