R. Doug Wicker's Blog, page 64

Fun Photo Friday — Off-Season Ketchikan 2

Abstract photo manipulation

I admit it. I went a little wild for today’s Fun Photo Friday. Okay, make that hog wild. I went crazy. I had fun with everything from boosting colors to color filtering for conversion to black & white. I even have in today’s collection a B&W image into which I inserted “film grain” to give it a classic old-timer look. I hope you enjoy me playing around a bit today:

Creek Street without the Color is still pretty “Colorful” Oversaturating Creek Street also give...

Cruising Alaska Off-Season — Cruising out of Ketchikan

It’s now four in the afternoon. Everyone is back aboard (I hope). The Ovation of the Seas is pulling away from the dock. Ketchikan is enveloped in a light drizzle that threatens to become a steady rain. Time to move on to our next destination. But don’t miss this sail away. Too much awaits you as the ship travels northwest through the narrow channel heading back into the Inside Passage. We’ll begin with this little photo gallery/slide show of Ketchikan receding into the rainy mist:

Bu...

Cruising Alaska Off-Season — Ketchikan’s Infamous Creek Street

I mentioned earlier in this series of articles that Ketchikan is one of our favorite Alaska destinations. Sure, it’s tourist-kitschy and all that, but it has much to offer the shutterbug. And, as you’ll see on this week’s Fun Photo Friday, it also offers up great subjects for over-the-top photo manipulation (Yep… went hog wild for this Friday, so stay tuned). And my favorite Ketchikan seems to heavily concentrate in one area — Ketchikan’s infamous former red-light district along Creek Stree...

Fun Photo Friday — Off-Season Ketchikan 1

Today is Part 1 of a two-part Fun Photo Friday series of Ketchikan favorites. Hope you enjoy the show.

Cruising Alaska Off-Season — Ketchikan’s Totem Heritage Center

Time to hit the local bus for a side trip Ursula was dying to make. She had her sights on a very specific museum owned and operated by the city of Ketchikan. This particular museum is dedicated to that indigenous art form known as the Totem Pole. Today I present to you the awesome Totem Heritage Center. But let’s take one last look at the navigation bridge of the Ovation of the Seas before we hit the bus:

Crew hard at work on Ovation‘s navigation bridge

It didn’t take long for the bus ...

Cruising Alaska Off-Season — Arriving Ketchikan

Ketchikan was a one-shot deal on these two off-season Alaskan back-to-back cruises. It was a substitute on Cruise #2 for the previous cruise’s Sitka visit, as weather made Sitka an iffy docking proposition. As Ketchikan is one of our favorite Alaskan destinations, Ursula and I were not disappointed at the substitution. The weather this morning alternated between sunny and drizzly. The picture below, for instance, was taken just 59 minutes after today’s lead photo above:

What a difference ...

Fun Photo Friday — Off-Season Skagway Favorites 2

Getting a Leg Up on the Restaurant Competition

Staring next week I’ll show you Ketchikan, which was the substitute for Sitka on Voyage 2 due to expected weather. As for today, it’s Fun Photo Friday. And, as with last week, this week displays nine favorites from our back-to-back voyages to Skagway during the off-season.

White Pass & Yukon on the Wall White Pass & Yukon off the Wall Off-Season Foliage 1 Off-Season Foliage 2 Reflecting Colors vs… … Mirroring the Subject Kirm...

Cruising Alaska Off-Season — Skagway and Our Favorite Jeweler

Today I’m going to do something that I seldom do beyond the occasional restaurant review or, in the case of our hideous experience with a certain innkeeper in Talkeetna and a related and equally hideous response from TripAdvisor (Be forewarned: don’t trust anything you read on that corrupt site), the very rare lodging review. Today, further down the page, I’m going to review a jewelry store. Not just any jewelry store, but rather a tourist destination jewelry store (I know; alarm bells are g...

Cruising Alaska Off-Season — Enjoying Picturesque Skagway

Most of the Skagway photography I showed you last week was taken on Voyage 1 (Monday, 27 September 2021), and it was cloudy that day. All of today’s images were taken eight days later (5 October 2021) during a much sunnier visit. And rather than giving a lot of longwinded commentary, most of the sights you see today will be self-explanatory. With one major exception. That is a brief word on the Red Onion Saloon, which I promised last Wednesday to tell you about.

Corner of 2nd and Broadway...

Fun Photo Friday — Off-Season Skagway Favorites 1

On most Fun Photo Fridays I usually present somewhere between four and six favorite photos. Not so with Skagway. There are a lot of fun shots you can do here. So, today and next Friday you’re going to get nine each. I’ll also be presenting some with commentary before assigning the rest to a photo gallery/slide show at the end.

Watery Reflection Dancing on the Ovation‘s Hull One Heck of a Snow Blower! Looking Back on Chilkoot Inlet