Alaska Inside Passage Cruise aboard the Ruby Princess: Part II
Day 5 brought us to Skagway, Alaska, the Northern-most stop on our journey. The only thing more beautiful than the weather was the scenery that greeted us there. (In case you missed it, Part I can be found here).
We headed out on a “Skagway in Focus” photography tour, guided by a professional photographer who took us to various locations around the area to up our photography game. It seemed the perfect excursion to see some lesser-known sights and play with our rented camera. In our (seemingly) neverending search of the perfect travel camera, we rented yet another Sony for this trip, this time the Alpha A7II. Noticeably larger than the Sony A6000 we rented for Europe (though still smaller and significantly lighter than my Canon 6D), this camera had the added advantage of a full frame sensor (the A7 series is the only mirrorless full frame camera currently on the market, a definite bonus for me). It took some amazing pictures, even with the basic kit lens (of course, the gorgeous scenery certainly didn’t hurt), but whether or not the images were that much better than what came out of the A6000, I can’t say. Perhaps sometime in the near future I’ll try to pull some similar(ish) images from both trips and do a side-by-side comparison to see if the A7II is really worth the extra weight and cost. As of now I am undecided, but one of these days I really need to stop renting cameras and just buy one.
Anyway, it’s always fun to explore a new place through the viewfinder of your camera, and that’s exactly what we did in Skagway. Granted, we spent a lot of time distracted by the beautiful wildflowers, which made me wish I had had the foresight to rent a macro lens too.
Our guide also took us to an old graveyard, hidden deep within in the woods. The dappled sunlight and carpet of Alaskan dogwoods gave the place a sense of peace and light. It was an emotionally charged space, for sure, but anything but creepy, although the story surrounding this particular plot could definitely be described as such. Most of the markers here display the same date, and many believe that those buried here were all killed in a single avalanche in 1898, when a group of impatient gold miners ignored the native’s advice and went up into the mountains anyway.
