Craig Shaknis Photography

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Craig Shaknis Photography Landscape and nature photography.

The Honor Summit: United in Remembrance of 9/11 Now just a day away from the 25th Anniversary of the horrific 9/11 attac...
09/10/2026

The Honor Summit: United in Remembrance of 9/11

Now just a day away from the 25th Anniversary of the horrific 9/11 attack on our country, “We Will Never Forget”. To the 2,977 precious lives lost, their loving families and friends, the heroic first responders, those who courageously rushed in to aid the injured, to the Veterans that serve to protect our country, and to every individual affected by this tragedy, “We Will Always Honor, Respect & Remember”. As a tribute this year, two massive pillars of light will rise into the heavens (more than 4 miles into the sky) from the summit of Mount Washington. At 6,288, Mount Washington is the known home to some of the world’s worst weather. With just 60 days a year of clear visibility and 110 days a year of winds reaching hurricane force, how incredible is it that these honor tribute lights will rise solid and strong from its iconic summit for the next three days!

A huge congrats to Renee Plummer for making her vision a reality!! And to the man on the mountain setting up and operating the lights, Chris Malloy & Team! Seeing these turn on Tuesday night was a once-in-a-lifetime emotional experience for me; thank you for making it happen. I made the drive to New Hampshire Tuesday afternoon and was absolutely blessed to be able to capture the lights on in full force, under clear skies, for their short test run. My friend, Dave Dostie, also made the drive over to the same spot; it was wonderful to tackle photographing this together – and it was not an easy task.

The lights will be on through Saturday from 8pm to Midnight. I highly recommend making the drive to New Hampshire to experience and honor this in person . Also, please consider making a donation to support this powerful effort at https://honorsummitnh.org/.






Greenland - Day 3 - We made our first landing in the town of Ilulissat. Ilulissat (lit. 'Icebergs') is the municipal se...
08/18/2026

Greenland - Day 3 - We made our first landing in the town of Ilulissat. Ilulissat (lit. 'Icebergs') is the municipal seat and largest town of the Avannaata municipality in western Greenland, located approximately 220 miles north of the Arctic Circle at 69 degrees north latitude. With a population of 5,149 as of 2025, it is the third-largest city in Greenland, after Nuuk and Sisimiut. The city is home to almost as many sled-dogs as people.

We had two shore excursions. The first was a one hour flight over the Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in a VERY cozy two engine plane. It was quite a sight to see this from the air. One of the images in this post is of the mouth of the ice fjord. It's a shallow, sandy bottomed, area where the larger icebergs get hung up until they shrink and size. This may take over six months to happen.

On our way back to the ship, we stopped at the Ilulissat cemetery. All of the headstones were identical white crosses. The Greenlandic people locate their cemeteries in a place with a nice scenic view as they believe you should have a good view in your final resting place. We found the cemeteries to be identical throughout our voyage.

Our second excursion was a walk through the town of Ilulissat. The houses are all painted bright colors. The color used to have historical significance i.e. fish factories were blue, houses and hospitals were yellow, churches and schools were red. Today, the houses are painted whatever color people want to paint them.

Dog sledding is still an important form of transportation for the Greenlandic people, especially for hunting, although snow machines, a.k.a. snow mobiles, are becoming more popular because it just gets you where you want to go faster! The dogs are kept in separate areas from homes and businesses. They are usually found on the outskirts of town where the dogs are chained to a stake and have access to a small dog house. The owners come daily to feed them and provide water. You may find this kind of cruel, but to the Greenlandic people, the dogs are essentially beasts of burden, not pets as they are here in the US and elsewhere. When they get too old to be a sled dog, or become ill, they are put down. Here is a link to a Wikipedia description of the Greenlandic sled dog if you want to learn more about them...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_Dog...(Greenlandic%3A%20Kalaallit&text=The%20Greenland%20Dog%20(Greenlandic%3A%20Kalaallit,with%20the%20Canadian%20Eskimo%20Dog.

Tomorrow, Uummannaq...And yes, I spelled it correctly!





Greenland - Day 2...We spent all of day two at sea going through safety briefings, attending informational lectures abou...
08/17/2026

Greenland - Day 2...We spent all of day two at sea going through safety briefings, attending informational lectures about Greenland, and picking up our gear for the excursions. Towards the end of the day, the icebergs came into view. It reminded me a lot of our trip to Antarctica...MASSIVE icebergs.




Greenland - Day 1 - Nuuk...Back in late June, Laura and I embarked on another "bucket list" trip to Greenland. Nuuk, th...
08/15/2026

Greenland - Day 1 - Nuuk...

Back in late June, Laura and I embarked on another "bucket list" trip to Greenland. Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, recently opened a new airport and we wanted to experience Greenland before it became more popular, like Iceland.

We set sail from Nuuk on HX's (Hurtigruten Expeditions) MS Fridtjof Nansen, the same expedition ship we visited Antarctica on back in 2024. The FN has a capacity of 500 people, but there were only 350 passengers aboard. We sailed north to visit the western coast of Greenland for the next ten days.

I will post some of my favorite images from our trip in the coming days.




Just back from another epic trip with LOTS of images. Here's a taste of things to come. Anyone want to guess where we ...
07/06/2026

Just back from another epic trip with LOTS of images. Here's a taste of things to come. Anyone want to guess where we were?

I was going through my images and found one from last September that I never posted.This is the Milky Way over Pleasant ...
05/31/2026

I was going through my images and found one from last September that I never posted.

This is the Milky Way over Pleasant Mountain in Bridgton, ME with Moose Pond in the foreground.



One of the prettiest flowers of Spring!
05/31/2026

One of the prettiest flowers of Spring!

We just got back from a family vacation in Jamaica. One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Rockland Bird Sanc...
04/28/2026

We just got back from a family vacation in Jamaica. One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Rockland Bird Sanctuary in Montego Bay. Although last October's hurricane severely affected the bird population in Jamaica, their numbers are starting to come back as more food becomes available. These two images are of the Red-Billed Streamertail (Trochilus polytmus), known locally as the "Doctor Bird". This species of hummingbird is endemic to Jamaica and serves as the island's national symbol. Males are easily recognized by their iridescent emerald-green plumage, black crest, bright red bill, and two, 10-13 cm long black tail streamers that produce a humming sound in flight.

I included a cropped, close-up, image, for you to see the detail in the feathers.





The ice is just about ready to go out on Long Lake and I am looking forward to the arrival of these beautiful birds, and...
04/01/2026

The ice is just about ready to go out on Long Lake and I am looking forward to the arrival of these beautiful birds, and their chicks.

Spring is almost here!


I saw an article in today's Portland Press Herald about the migration of Snow Geese at Middle Creek Wildlife Refuge, nea...
03/14/2026

I saw an article in today's Portland Press Herald about the migration of Snow Geese at Middle Creek Wildlife Refuge, near Reading PA, and it inspired me to make this post. I used to live not far from there and would visit it this time of year to photograph snow geese.

The pictures below are when upwards of 140,000 snow geese had stopped at Middle Creek on their yearly migration to their breeding grounds in Canada and Arctic region. The reservoir was constructed when the snow geese were almost extinct to give them a rest stop along their journey north.

It's one of the most amazing wildlife scenes I've ever photographed.



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