White-fronted geese
Coming home from Hoonah in late April, 2015, Cathy and I swung out to the Industrial Boulevard wetland access to…
2015 | Richard Carstensen & Catherine Pohl | 10 seconds
I’m a late-adopter of most technologies. Nearly 40 years old before my first camera; last among my friends to give in to email and cell phone. No different in the world of moving pictures. In education, I remember Clay Good’s dictum to his phone-wired highschoolers: stills, but no movies. In his experience, video viewing and making sucked kids into a subjective vortex. When instead, they backed into the ‘old-fashioned’ technology of still photos, a more observant mindset emerged.
That was at least a decade ago. Today (2018), the triumph of selfies has warped our teens’ relationship to stills. In the seesaw-&-wratchet of technology, anything we do too much of is dulling. The trick is to stay fresh—to keep searching for each tool’s noblest use—and to desist from pounding screws with hammers.
I was lured into video by drones—one technology I jumped into rather early. I just knew that watching forests and streams pass below from Raven-strafing level would be mesmerizing. Hard to imagine one could tire of that.
And then there’s motioncams. What a revelation—to learn what critters do when we’re not there! For me, video is currently a spice. Not the main course, but a tasty complement to more and more of my documentary efforts. Some of the older vimeo-posts linked below are composed strictly of still images, assembled into narrated slideshows, but using pan and zoom for some of the features we associate with “moving pictures.”
Oh yeah, and speaking of the rapidity of technological change, it’s already pretty amusing—that ‘poster’ for my 2015 video below called New technologies for old naturalists. The drone in that photo already looks about as “new” as a Model-T Ford.
In this section
Amalga flight
Low-elevation views of the Amalga Salt Chuck and the Eagle Valley Center, under renovation in spring, 2017. amalgaflight from Discovery…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 3 minutes
Spring migrants on the Refuge
Yellowlegs, peeps, and northbound songbirds on the Refuge dike trail.
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 90 seconds
Discovery’s education and research at The Glacier
Discovery Southeast celebrates 4 decades of research and education at Áak’w Táak, inland from little lake (Mendenhall Valley) glacierdiscovery from…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 27 minutes
Raven’s-eye views of postglacial succession
Aerial views of post-glacial succession. Combines UAV perspectives with high-res orthophotography plus forest profile views in the LiDAR point cloud.…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 20 minutes
Kids & porpoises
Sealaska Heritage is wrapping up a 10-day culture camp for middle school students. I came along to share information about…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 1 minute
Steep Creek Critters
Filmed all these clips in less than 2 hours at Mendenhall Visitor Center today. Never would have guessed what a…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 3 minutes
Cowee flight
100 seconds of aerial video over Ch’eet’ Taayí, murrelet fat (Cowee Creek), on the north end of the CBJ. End…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 2 minutes
Wild food
Wildlife photography on northern Tàan, sea lion (Prince of Wales Island). I was hosted by Don and Andrea Hernandez at …
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 2 minutes
Eagle beach aerials
Out to the scout campside of Eagle River today, Sept 10, 2017. This is where I became a naturalist in…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 2 minutes
Eaglecrest aerials
In September, as deer cabbage turned gold, I flew some of the new trails on ridges above the lifts. eaglecrestaerials…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 2 minutes
September in Granite Basin
Vignettes from an evening visit to Granite Basin, just a couple hours above downtown Juneau. Thoughts on the connections between…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 2.5 minutes
Sydney Laurence in Áak’w Aaní
Part of a 2012 slide show for Juneau-Douglas City Museum on Alaskan landscape painter Sydney Laurence. I co-presented with Mike…
2012 | Richard Carstensen | 17 minutes
Hank Lentfer motion camera
In February, 2018, Hank Lentfer, Bob Armstrong and I gave a talk for the Alaska Wildlife Alliance on what I’ve…
Evening grosbeaks
Bob Armstrong’s Guide to the birds of Alaska, 6th edition, lists evening grosbeak as ‘casual’ in SE, SC and Central…
2018 | Richard Carstensen | 1 page
Cemetery stem mapping: then and now
Remapping with Montessori For a teacher at any of the downtown schools (Harborview, Montessori, JD High) with only an hour’s…
2017 | Richard Carstensen | 13 minute slideshow
When we’re not there
Studying wildlife with trail cams. Special emphasis on deer. Presentation to the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, Juneau chapter, Feb 2018. This…
Feb, 2018 | Richard Carstensen | 21 minutes
Shrew
Short video clip of a shrew—either Sorex cinereus or monticolus—sole Southeast genus in the order Soricomorpha. In July, 2012, hikers…
2012 | Richard Carstensen | 23 seconds
New tools for old naturalists
The 21st-century cartographer New tools for old naturalists In March, 2015, I gave a fireside presentation at the Mendenhall Visitor…
2015 | Richard Carstensen | 31 minutes
Focus and breadth: science and natural history in Southeast Alaska
In March, 2015, I gave a banquet presentation to the Alaska Chapter of the Wildlife Society. Afterwards, I archived it…
2015 | Richard Carstensen | 31 minutes