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Traveling by snow machine, Potter’s School junior Mark Henspeter heads off into the Alaskan frontier, leaving his tracks in the newly-fallen snow. The temperature is below –10 degrees Fahrenheit, perhaps as low as –30. Armed with his digital camera, he travels into the wild away from human habitation, to the mountains and the northern skies, the rivers and the streams—to nature itself in all of its unpredictable beauty.

Mark has been interested in photography for as long as he can remember. "I really enjoyed looking at the pictures in publications such as National Geographic even well before I could read," he says. Yet his interest in photography suffered. Where he lived, it took forever using a film camera to receive processed photographs. "It was a slow learning process." So, in the spring of 2004, Mark purchased a four mega-pixel digital camera, which turned out to be a wonderful investment. During the spring, summer, and winter of that year, he shot constantly, taking over 8,000 photos in the first six months. By this time, he had learned how to use the camera effectively and was ready to graduate to the next level. So he purchased a five mega-pixel camera, taking his abilities even higher. But, even with this camera, he again reached his limit by the winter of last year. Now, using a digital, single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, Mark is able to capture scenes of Alaskan wilderness that few have ever seen in person, or even in photography.

Mark's years of experience working in the extreme Alaskan cold have taught him what to do during adverse weather, both for himself and for his equipment. "Dealing with -30F [-34C] is never easy," he says, "and photographing in it is even harder. Cameras lock up, batteries die, and LCD’s slow. I think that the extreme environment allows me to simplify my process, however. It forces one to focus on the necessities at hand and to eliminate the additional elements, to get the job done right the first time. In the winter, you don’t want to spend fifteen minutes—when the light is fading fast and the temperature is dropping—to bracket exposures and change lenses. The same applies in all seasons: it forces you to pare down both your technique and equipment to the essentials and use those to the best of your abilities."

Besides his self-taught instruction, Mark gained experience and skills in the art of photography in February of this year when he received selection by the North American Nature Photography Association. As one of the ten High School Scholarship Winners, Mark took part in the annual photography summit in Denver, Colorado, where he met and received training from top professional photographers and "acquired a wealth of information to assist [him] in [his] photography."

This March, Mark participated in the photography contest hosted by the Nature’s Best Photography Magazine. From the photographs he submitted, the judges awarded "Footprints In The Sand" with "highly honored." Explaining why he had included this photograph, Mark said, "I submitted 'Footprints' because I felt that it was a good example of the effects of man; although they appear permanent and significant, they are small and temporary compared to the forces of nature around us." In July, Mark submitted a collection of photographs to the National Wildlife Federation contest, which awarded his photograph "Eagle On Ice" with "Honorable Mention." "Footprints In The Sand" is currently on display in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, in Washington D.C., and will be until late March of next year. You can also find "Footprints In The Sand", as well as "Eagle On Ice", in the Winter and Fall 2006 issues of the Nature’s Best Photography Magazine.

You can enjoy more of Mark’s photography at his website. There, you’ll find over 500 photos of distinctly Alaskan nature, ranging from mountains to ice crystals, and including a variety of wildlife, scenic, and abstract collections. "I think that my photography has caused me to stop and take a closer look at much of nature around me," Mark says, "be that through the character of the wild animals, the patterns in the sky, or the petals of a flower. Nature always has something different to offer, if we only take the time to look for it."

 

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