My Nome photo gallery is up.

[Blue_In_AK]

I decided to take CC's advice to go ahead and post the non-Iditarod Nome photos before I finish the captions on the race pictures, so here's the link. http://www.northernvisions.smugmug.com/gallery/7808721_GnmWX#505531056_EUw7Z

While you're looking at these, to get the full effect, keep in mind that the temperature hovers around -15 to 0. Sometimes there is no wind, but oftentimes it's blowing 10-15 mph. The snow squeaks under your boots and the hairs in your nose stiffen when you breathe in.

[JeffR]

1. What a fine travelogue this set is.

Very hard to choose favorites from these. The landscapes, the people, the crafts show, just incredible. If pressed, I'd have to say 35 and 39 really stand out, discrete little highlights in all that vastness.

And note to self: quit griping about winter on the Great Lakes.:crazy:

[Blue_In_AK]

2. Yes, it was pretty nippy up there,

and unrelentless. I guess we really noticed it because we were outside so much of the time, although I have to say that by the end of the nine days, we were almost used to it. When the wind would die down, it seemed almost warm, even though the temperature was still hovering right around zero.

A few times I'd be lying in my nice cozy bed at night and would hear the siren go off announcing another musher approaching Front Street, but then I would hear the howling of the wind, too, and I just couldn't make myself go out there, no matter how much I wanted the shots. I feel bad that I wasn't able to chronicle every single one of them coming into town, but I'm just not quite that intrepid. That's why in my Nome Iditarod gallery, some of the mushers are only pictured at the "meet the mushers" function, signing autographs. And for some of them we were eating a meal (or partying at the Breakers, I'm embarrassed to say). Next year I'm going to try to do better.

I learned really quickly to carry plastic trash bags in my pockets to put the cameras in when I came inside. On one of the first days, I didn't do that, and not only did condensation show up on my lens, but it instantly froze. I'd carefully remove the frost and it would immediately frost up again. That was a lesson quickly learned. I also learned that it was wise to carry two or three extra batteries in my inside coat pocket at all times.

[JeffR]

3. If I'd been there

I probably would have spent most of my time at the Breakers.:)

Winter is a challenge for both the photographer and the equipment, for sure. But you and your equipment done good.

[boomerbust]

4. Beautiful

You certainly captured the beauty in this desolate place.