Bob Hallinen is more than a photographer, he’s an artist.

"He’s the best shooter I’ve ever worked with,” said Dave Horst, a former colleague who worked as a reporter with Hallinen decades ago at a newspaper in Marquette, Michigan. 

Hallinen, who left Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the 1980s and spent 33 years at the Anchorage Daily News before retiring in 2018, has a knack for portraying his subjects, whether high school athletes, Alaska landscapes, or even a moose he spotted wandering Anchorage’s streets, in a way that is both colorful and compelling.

Hallinen, though not an Alaska native, has come to love the state as his home. He originally came to Alaska thinking he would spend a year to see if he liked The Great Frontier. His decades-long stay started at a friend’s invitation. His friend’s influence helped him land a position at the Ketchikan Daily News, and when his friend moved to the Anchorage Daily News, "he cajoled me and said ‘do you want a job here?’”

Hallinen said yes, and he wound up shooting sports, people, places, events, and animals, lots of animals. 

Whether covering the Exxon Valdez oil spill or "sweet moments like a boy and his puppy,” Hallinen has always found the "magic light” in which to portray his subjects and bring them to life through his photography.

Among his subjects, Hallinen has photographed the Iditarod sled dog race, Denali National Park's grandeur, the rainforests of Southeast Alaska, and "the austere beauty of the Aleutian Islands.”

"Bears, moose, Dall sheep, and other life forms have passed in front of my camera, sometimes in stunning locations,” Hallinen said in a goodbye letter to Anchorage Daily News readers on his retirement.

His success, Hallinen says, is "magic light.”

In Alaska, that magic light is always there but it can be elusive under the summer clouds or winter skies. 

But Hallinen has always captured that magic light, making his photos powerful and unique.

"With wildlife, you can grab a nice shot, an owl, say, when the light is good, magic light,” Hallinen said. "Early morning and early evening are the best times. That’s the thing about magic light Alaska. Because we’re so far north you tend to have longer sunrises and sunsets. In the lower 48, you have a shorter time period. 

"We (in Alaska) have about five hours of light right now, but even after sunset, there will be light in the sky. You have color in the sky and you can shoot really cool pictures with silhouettes and nice warms skies, that sort of thing.”

It isn’t just magic light that a good photographer needs to shoot beautiful pictures in Alaska. It’s also context, about getting shots that are natural.

"With wildlife, you can get a nice picture with some background and foreground,” he said. "You need a frame of reference. A moose in the magic light is pretty cool, or a moose crossing the street, but you need context. If you have more than just the animal in the shot, if you have the grandeur of the setting, that’s the best.”

Hallinen has indeed caught a shot of a moose walking down a neighborhood street in Anchorage, not necessarily its natural setting – but again, it’s about context; where else but Alaska might you find a moose walking down the street? While the sight of a moose in Alaska may not be at all unusual, catching a shot of one casually strolling through a neighborhood as though he were looking for a bus stop makes for an interesting and amusing picture, one that Hallinen is an expert at catching.

Hallinen chuckles when asked where he best loves to shoot. The answer is simple: Alaska is his favorite place.

"One of the things about Alaska is it’s so big,” he said. "It’s such a beautiful country and you’ve got whales and mountain goats and Native art and Native architecture. You’ve got all kinds of wildlife and landscapes.

"Alaska’s huge and sometimes there are roads that are not so well-developed. I wish you could drive anywhere. You either have to fly or take a boat or ferry. Most of the places along the Inner Passage, Skagway, and Haines, you can’t really drive to.” 

When pressed for his favorite places to shoot, he says he likes to drive along Turnagain Arm, a waterway near Anchorage. It’s his current Alaska "go-to” spot.

"It’s a beautiful drive,” he said. "The mountains go right up to the roads.” 

But Hallinen also recommends other spots, like Seward in South Central Alaska.

"In Seward, you can grab a tour boat through the Kenai Fjords National Park,” he said. "There are whales and glaciers, and depending on which tour you take you may even see a glacier calving (breaking off). For the bang for the buck, that’s a good one. Or you can fly across Cook Inlet out of Homer, see Brooks Falls.” 

Although Hallinen is a veteran photographer who is an expert at shooting sights and scenes and animals in Alaska, you yourself probably are not, at least not of the caliber of Hallinen.

Hallinen offers a few tips for getting the best shots.

Alaska Photography Tips

The first rule of photography in Alaska, he said: "Have patience. That’s the most important thing to bring to Alaska, especially with wildlife.”

Other suggestions for travelers who want to memorialize their Alaska experience with photographs:

• "With wildlife photos, you have to wait for them to lift their head up, turn just right, move into a situation where the composition, the background, is best.”
• "Sometimes you have to wait for the sun to break through the clouds or the light to get better.” Again, patience.
• "Bring a small tripod.”
• If you’re photographing wildlife, "check out (their) behavior. See what the warning signs are if you’re too close. If there’s wildlife, you have to be aware, especially with a moose. See if he’s ignoring you or if he’s aware of you. In general, you don’t want to get too close to wildlife.” 

Hallinen has had at least one close call of his own with Alaska’s denizens.

"One time, we were on a shoot and a grizzly bear came and sat down within six feet of where we were watching the other bears. He just sat there, watched the (nearby) waterfall with us and then wandered away,” he said. 

In addition to his wildlife warnings, Hallinen recommends a few more tips.

• "A flash is a handy thing to have.”
• "Vary your heights. Try to get that different angle. That can improve your shot.” (Hallinen sometimes would lie on his belly to shoot passing dogs at the Iditarod.)
• "If it’s really cold and you’re outside shooting and you go inside, your lens will fog up. A hairdryer can warm it up and dry it off.”
• Bring plastic bags to waterproof your camera between shots if you’re on a tour boat.

As a newspaper photographer who has covered everything from the Exxon Valdez to tragedies such as fires and traffic accidents, Hallinen said that despite his retirement, he will continue to shoot and look for the "magic light.”