Laurel McConnell Photography

After waking up uber early (3:30 am!) to catch our morning flight, we had quite the adventure at the airport.  I’ll let Barbie tell you guys about our check-in (phew! almost a complete disaster!) but we had a fantastic flight (which was only 1/4 full because no one is crazy enough to fly to Ketchikan, Alaska THAT early…).

 

 

Welcome to Ketchikan, Alaska.  Population: 9,000.  Location: Southeast Alaska.  Travel time from Seattle: 2 hours by air.  Basically, it’s the only well-established city on the entire island of Revillagigedo.  

For years, ever since I met Barbie way back in photography school, we’ve been trying to find excuses for me to visit where she grew up.  So when Amy and Brad decided to have their wedding, and Barbie was asked to be a bridesmaid, it all fell into place!  Now, the wedding is a whole other blog post, so for now, I’ll just tell you guys about day number one.

Right in town there’s this old boardwalk called Creek Street with lots of little touristy shops and art museums and restaurants (we came one week before tourist season started.  EVERYTHING was closed, but once the cruise ships start coming, everything is repainted, restocked, and reopened).  There’s even a funny sign at the entrance stating: “Welcome to Historic Creek Street: Where fish and fisherman go up the creek to spawn!”

Dolly’s- the old town brothel….must have been where the fisherman were headed…

 

South of Ketchikan is Saxman, the Tlingit Indian village, which holds the world’s largest collection of totem poles.  See Abraham Lincoln (the tiny one way back there…)- legend has it that they carved him with such short legs because they saw a picture of him that was cropped from the mid-thighs up and thought that’s all their was!

Then we headed further South to Buggy’s Beach, where Nichols Pass meets Carol & George Inlet.  The view there was gorgeous.

We were having a great time, the weather was uncharacteristically clear and pleasant…

…when Barbie spotted some little tiny hermit crabs in a tide pool worthy of photographing.  ”Good thing I brought my macro lens, let me just reach around into my bag and get it…”

Then it happened.  The moment all photographers dread, cause, you see, salt water is corrosive and like The Plague on electronics.  The way we like to tell it is that a polar bear chased me and I slipped on a penguin’s tale and fell into the ocean, but we all know I’m not THAT lucky and there are no polar bears in Southeast Alaska.

So here’s what really happened:

one brand new Nikon D3 + slickery rocks and algae + teeney tiny tidepool + some words we won’t repeat here = a little blood + algae stained soaked pants + and a big frowny face 

These images are by the fantabulous Barbie Hull, who I can always count on to document my misfortunes after shaking the water out of $6000 worth of camera equipment for me while I just stand there with my mouth wide open in disbelief :)

Special props to my insurance company State Farm- they checked in with me every day for a week to make sure that everything was happening quickly with my claim, and that I could have a replacement camera overnighted so that I wouldn’t miss a beat once I got back home.  Now if the black bruises on my leg would just heal, it would be like it never happened…. except we’ve got the pictures to prove it.

Day One’s lesson: don’t try to photograph little tiny hermit crabs.