Some members of our group chose to hike at sunset along Wood Spit, and I photographed them from a skiff as they followed their guide along the shoreline. This image juxtaposes man against the work of nature. The scale incongruity here is overwhelming. The people may well be awestruck at how small they seem in a place like this.

Endicott Arm is one of two fjords in the heart of the Tracy Arm-Ford’s Terror Wilderness. It was icy, cold, and foggy, and we traveled more than 30 miles to reach the Dawes Glacier at its end. Meanwhile, many passengers kept warm in our ships lounge. I made this image of some of them as they read books and viewed what they could see of the passing scenery. Using a wideangle lens turned vertically, I anchor the image with an open book at the bottom of the frame that is nearly as large as some of the passengers sitting in the background. I like the richness of the reds and blues in the image as well.

As the fog lifted over Endicott Arm, a translucent layer of clouds emerged, featuring small patches of bright blue sky. I used my 28mm wideangle focal length to anchor the scene with the two yellow skiffs being towed through the fjord by our ship. The skiffs ride in the wake of our ship’s engine, which churns the water into a frothy green roadway. In contrast, a mirror-like surface lines both sides of that wake. I use the two rows of receding cliffs lining the channel to echo the flow of the pair of skiffs.

The cliffs that line Endicott Arm are relics of the great ice age that once embraced all of Alaska. As we neared the end of the fiord that culminated with the enormous Dawes Glacier, we noticed that the colors embedded in those cliffs became ever more vibrant. This particular cave has an entrance lined with splashes of crimson. While I am not sure if those colors are due to mineral deposits, lichen growths, or both, the effect was stunning. I used my spot-metering mode to stress the interplay between light and shadow, darkening the image to create a painterly effect.

In 1899, a naval crewman named Ford padded into a narrow waterway connected to Endicott Arm, and was trapped for six terrible hours in a ripping tidal surge. His ordeal gave this waterfall, and indeed the 653,000-acre wilderness area around it, its name. There were actually three separate waterfalls plunging side by side down a huge cliff. I chose to shoot only one of them here – the one that offered the most beautiful pattern of water hitting rock. I used a fast shutter speed of 1/800th of a second to make this image, and converted it to black and white to simplify the composition and make the flow of water seem even more graceful and delicate. It’s beauty stands in direct opposition to its namesake.

My six-day cruise through the Inside Passage ended in Juneau, and I extended the trip by flying out to a remote fishing camp at the end of Admiralty Island, where I enjoyed four additional days of nature photography. In this image, I stood on a floating dock almost below the wing of a private floatplane, and made this image of the floatplane base at Juneau’s International Airport. I used this plane’s wing to create a horizontal frame within my frame. The horizontal wing echoes the wings of the plane parked just in front of us, as well as the horizon, along with the sweep of the roadway adjoining the huge basin where floatplanes are parked, takeoff, and land. The distant mountains offer context – these floatplanes connect Juneau with wilderness destinations throughout Southeast Alaska.