Free Bird

One of the aspects of photography I love most is the challenge. The stories will always be present around you, it’s just a matter of being able to capture them.



By most measures, five hours is hardly a significant amount of time. Five hours in a new location to get an image of a subject flying at speeds up to 100 mph, seemed like pure fantasy.



After a four-hour drive from Anchorage, I arrived in the small city of Homer just before midnight. I set off early the next morning, knowing that I’d have to start my drive back to the airport by noon. I spent a good part of my first hour walking back and forth along the shoreline after spotting the birds briefly from a distance. I knew I had to get close enough and low enough to be able to showcase the animals in their environment. An image looking up at an eagle into the sky would lack context, and as with any bird, it is all about the wing position. On a cloudy morning, lighting is scarce, and when you need a shutter speed around a thousandth of a second to freeze the motion, you really push the camera to its limits.



While I would have preferred to stay for a week, even just the few hours with these birds was enough to make the journey feel worth it. I could have left Alaska without an image and still been happy with the experience, but sometimes you head home with exactly what you were looking for all along. “Free Bird,” “It’s Not You, It’s Me,” and “Breaking Bald” were the result of that exhilarating morning out on the Homer Spit.



Having been fortunate to be in the presence of some of the world’s most impressive wildlife, there are few feelings quite like seeing a bald eagle take flight. With its giant wingspan, distinct coloring, and sheer power, America’s bird was built to take flight, and it was born to fly free.