“Ancestral Spirit” by Junichi Nakamura, Shinichi Sawamura, Greg Butauski, and Dawson List, 2nd place multiblock event, 2004 World IceArt Championships, Fairbanks, Alaska. photo by Patrick Endres, www.alaskaphotographics.com
updated 10/6/23
Patrick Endres
Patrick Endres of AlaskaPhotoGraphics is widely regarded by expert ice sculptors as one of the best ice sculpture photographers anywhere. Junichi Nakamura’s book, “Visions of the Master”, has a lot of Endres’ pictures. I used to think (until Junichi’s book came out) that Endres’ and Kris Capps small softcover book: “The Making of Ice Art: Sculpting the Arctic Diamond” was perhaps the best book on ice sculpture that I’d ever seen.
So when I got a FedEx package from Endres’ AlaskaPhotoGraphics a while back, I was pretty excited. Inside was an 11”x16” print of the photo above. I’d waited quite a while to get a high quality print of our sculpture from 2004, but it didn’t diminish the excitement of opening the package.
The quality and sharpness of the print was fantastic! I’ve spend a lot of time trying to get quality photos of a few of my ice sculptures and I’ve had some success. But Endres’ work is the gold standard that I aspire to. I can put my photo next to the photo I just got and know that I’ve still got a long way to go.
Patrick puts a lot of work into his photos; it’s definitely an art in itself. I’ve watched him work on sculpture lighting and shot positioning late at night in the brutal Fairbanks cold. When a lot of people look at a photo, they just assume that all the photographer did was snap a picture. There is SO much more to it than that and Patrick and his assistants do amazing work, often in forbidding conditions.
Previously, I had some specific search terms that I suggested you use for the AlaskaPhotoGraphics site. They’ve changed the site, however, so those terms no longer work. What I suggest then, is to simply search for “ice,” “ice sculpture,” “ice Alaska,”… you get the gist. With any of these, you’ll get a whole bunch of amazing ice photos, with a few Alaskan wilderness and other kinds of photos mixed in. “Fairbanks ice” yielded over a thousand photos to look through, many of them shots of sculptors at work.
“Fear of the Sword”; 2nd place, Multi-block Realistic, 1998 World IceArt Championships, Fairbanks, Alaska. By Junichi Nakamura, Scott Rella, Peter Slavin, & Hiroshi Takahashi
Years ago, on my ice carving sketchbook, I taped a small photo of Mark Daukas’ “Thor” sculpture from the 1994 Olympic ice carving event. At the time, that was one of the best ice sculpture photos I’d ever seen and I used to look at it so that I would remember to keep trying to improve. It’s still a great photo, but now there’s lots more on Endres’ site.
My advice would be to pick one or two of your favorite photos and order a print. It doesn’t have to be a poster-sized print, sizes for the fine art prints start at 8×12 ($40, shipping included in the U.S.) You’ll see sculptural details in the print that you could never see on the web. It will give you a new appreciation for the skill that goes into the World IceArt Championship sculptures and Endres’ photos and perhaps provide some inspiration for your ice carving.
I've added a gallery of Patrick Endres' ice photos
It’s pretty simple. World class ice sculptors such as Junichi Nakamura, Steve and Heather Brice, Vitaly Lednev, and Peter Slavin have depended on Patrick Endres to capture their otherwise ephemeral art while they’re at the World Ice Art Championships. There’s not much else to say, just go ahead and look at the pictures and see for yourself.
P.S. Junichi Nakamura appears in one of the photos in the gallery. Well, he appears in several. But in one, he’s quietly standing there and it’s easy to miss him. Hint: it’s not the pic with the guy with the big sword.
links and stuff
I’ll add more links later, assuming I don’t forget that this page REALLY needs more links 😉
You could also find photos and/or info related to this entry on the ice sculpting secrets Instagram account or the facebook page. You can comment there since I probably haven’t fixed the comments section on old posts yet 😕 Thanks!
