Donald Diddams
The Art of Digital Art
Industrial Counterpoint
Posted on August 27, 2013
Thousands of people travel to Southeast Alaska every year to experience the grandeur and wildness of its natural wonders. But getting to those wild places is itself a business of industrial scale — an industrial counterpoint to the experience of nature that is the goal of so much travel.
There is tension between the experience of nature and the means to achieve it. It is important to acknowledge that tension, while recognizing that the man-made and the natural environments each have their own rhythms, needs and contributions to make. Each can make room for the other.
Crowding In
Intrusion
Skagway Harbor Tug
Distant Snowfield
Seattle Skyline
Glacier Bay, Alaska
Posted on July 31, 2013
These images are from Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Southeast Alaska. Although accessible only by air and sea, a chance to visit the 3.3 million acre preserve should not be missed.
[See more in the Glacier Bay gallery.]
The day these were taken began with heavy fog and mist that lifted, shifted and settled back in again several times during the day. The mountains and even the sea would be fully shrouded for a while, and then the fog would gradually lift revealing perhaps just the ice scattered on the sea, or perhaps a mountainside and glacier before closing in again.
Bergy Bits and Growlers
250 years ago, glaciers covered the entire bay, but now one must travel as much as 65 miles up to the head of the inlets to see the face of tidewater glaciers that barely touch the sea. The experience reset my sense of scale, of awe — and of loss.
Lamplugh Glacier
[See more in the Glacier Bay gallery.]
St. Croix — Hotel Caravelle Artwork
Mocko Jumbies
Donald Diddams 