Thursday, May 23, 2013

News
Captions: The Stories Behind the Photos
Taking off
By Kirsten Swann


Presented by Snapped

Just outside Ted Stevens International Airport, there’s a bluff where the end of the road meets the end of the runway, the planes fly low overhead and locals on lunch breaks take a minute to enjoy the view.

In the summertime, moose forage along the grassy knoll and bikers ride by on the tail end of the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. Winter brings frozen Cook Inlet panoramas, and throughout the year Sleeping Lady sits tall on the horizon across the water.

They’re all familiar scenes to Charlie Earnshaw.

He spends his workdays at the airport handling business for Everts Air Cargo, but for a brief spell most afternoons he travels beyond the tarmac to spend some time with his camera. He photographs the birds and the striking landscapes around him, and said pictures have always been a hobby.

Things changed when he got a Canon Rebel. First, Earnshaw shot with a T1I and later with an upgraded T3I. They captured brighter, sharper images and refined the way he was able to capture the world around him.

But when he began dating a girl from Wasilla, things changed even more.

Her father, Bill Hess, took photographs and blogged on a website called Logbook Wasilla. He taught Earnshaw to treasure the feel of a photo more than the focus, and to be unafraid of using a high ISO setting in low light. Most importantly, he taught him to carry his camera everywhere he went.

Now Earnshaw calls Hess one of his main motivations, and spends his afternoons shooting photos near the bluff at the end of the runway.

“I find that lunch time is often a good time to take time for pictures,” he said.