Fairbanks in Deep Freeze: A Winter Photo Essay

Born and raised in California you become unaware at times on how good the weather is year round. Once in a while you are reminded when the rest of the country is either freezing or burning, the Bay Area specifically always finds a way to stay around the perfect 70 degrees. The past few years my current full-time job has given me the opportunity to flip everything I was used to on its head and work in the coldest city in the country, Fairbanks Alaska.

For two weeks I was to perform extreme winter testing in the cars I work with. That alone is a great experience. With these opportunities is the best time to take advantage to photograph what unique places I’m able to come across. For the most part back at home, I use this job to photo scout locations that are near the Bay Area going as far south as Big Sur or as far north as Sea Ranch.

Last year I don’t think I was fully prepared with how cold -20 degrees really was. Not being able to feel my hands while taking pictures, rushing back to the car to get the feeling back in my toes, and realizing I only have 4 hours of daylight to shoot was something I had to learn to work with on the fly. For how little I was unprepared I felt like I still got a lot of work out of last year's trip capturing a lot of the surrounding landscapes. I did unfortunately miss the coverage of Fairbanks itself. I made sure to check that during this year's trip.

This time around I thought I had Fairbanks figured out, weather wise but was proven wrong fast. For the two weeks I was down there, I didn’t go on a single walk the first week. I tried to make a conscious effort to urge myself out of my hotel room to photograph around the city. Back at home this would have been an easy task but after driving 8 hours around Fairbanks during my shift, and the weather staying around -30 degrees makes it a little harder to get myself outside.

The weather last year was somewhat manageable, but the cold this time was so extreme I didn’t feel the cold when outside. If I was to walk outside for about a minute, my face would just start to hurt before it gets cold.

Second and last week coming around it started to “warm up” to around -15 degrees. I was determined to not leave empty handed. I made sure to go on walks around neighborhoods after shifts for hours and was lucky enough to have local coworkers take me around and show me cool landmarks to have a quick snap during our drives. Compared to last year I feel I did Fairbanks justice covering more what was in the city. 

Looking forward to what I come across for next year's extreme winter testing!