Sacha Layos

Sacha grew up in Pennsylvania and was introduced to photography by her grandfather who was a
prolific amateur photographer always looking to improve his skills and to capture the beauty of nature. Seeing that Sacha had a similar interest, he mentored her by giving her her first “real” camera, a 35mm Olympus (film) OM-PC , shortly after college and several other models as the years went by. From there, she followed her camera lens across the country documenting every step of the way from Mississippi to New Mexico and eventually to Alaska.

Sacha first made her way North in 1996 by way of a summer job in Denali National Park. At the end of 3 short months, she was hooked on the beauty and wonder of Alaska. Opportunities to explore, document, and appreciate the vast beauty of the world around her were plentiful. She religiously put her cameras to use capturing the magic of the landscape and wildlife of Denali National Park. Shortly after moving to Fairbanks in the Fall of 1997, she began working as a park ranger at Chena Lake Recreation Area, a 2,100 acre park sandwiched between North Pole, the Chena River Recreation Area to the northeast, and the 20,000 acres of public land the Corps of Engineers operated on the Chena River Lakes Flood Control Project and Moose Creek Dam to the East. Bears, wolves, moose, owls, beavers, sunsets, and sunrises were all subjects of her photography during that time.

In 2000, she worked helping night sky tourists at Skiland, and her love for aurora photography was
born. For the next several years, many sleepless winter nights commenced while she learned to love the night sky no matter how cold it was outside. She took a hiatus from night sky photography while she started a family, but was drawn back to the magnetism of the night once the kids started sleeping through the night. By 2014, she dove head first into DSLR night sky photography and has loved every minute of it since.

Sacha greatly enjoys bringing images of the aurora and Fairbanks and Alaska landscapes to people who might otherwise not get to experience the grandness of Alaska’s beauty.