Biography:
Acacia Johnson is an artist and photographer from Alaska. Drawn to remote places and otherworldly landscapes, her work has focused on the environment, conservation, and the connections between people and place. After receiving a Fulbright grant to...
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Skills:Translator, Digital Printing, Photo Assisting, Film Scanning, Adobe InDesign, Book Layout/Design, Photo Editing, Black & White Printing, Web Design, Video Editing
A male Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) wallows in the shallow waters off a beach on Round Island, Alaska. Pale in color from a prolonged immersion in the icy waters of the Bering Sea, its skin will quickly redden when it comes ashore into warmer conditions and blood returns to its extremities. One of seven islands in the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary, Round Island—known as Qayassiq, or "place to go in a kayak", in Yup'ik—has been used as a summer haulout for male Pacific walrus for thousands of years. Since the walrus sanctuary was established in 1960, a state-run summer visitor program on Round Island allows small groups of visitors to camp on the island and observe walrus under the careful management of Alaska Department of Fish and Game sanctuary staff, who conduct daily wildlife monitoring on the island every summer. Round Island also remains an important subsistence hunting site for nearby Alaska Native communities, who organize a subsistence hunt for walrus there every October. Archaeological evidence shows that the Yup'ik people and their ancestors have hunted walrus on the island for over 5,000 years.
A March sunset glows through the bridge of an expedition vessel traveling the coast of Svalbard. In another month, the midnight sun will return, making March an ideal time of year for photography due to the colors of light.