Hot shots from a cool place.

• Author: Forker, Jennifer
• Position: Alaska Stock Images

One of Alaska's most successful photographers has built a thriving business selling pictures taken by other photographers.

Who wouldn't take a second look at an Orca whale soaring out of deep waters, or bat. McKinley rising above the morning fog?

We all ache for such sights in Alaska, where our chances are greater than, say, in landlocked Nebraska. Folks everywhere hunker down for glimpses of the Alaska life on television and in National Geographic and travel magazines, but have you stopped to think how this state more subtly wangles into everyday life?

Jeff Schultz has. It's his business to slip Alaska images into our conscious and subconscious minds, if even for a nanosecond.

Schultz owns Alaska Stock Images, a clearinghouse of more than 250,000 photographs of Alaska and Alaska-like subjects. Thus, his files include shots of whales and mountains but also penguins and igloos things Outsiders unwittingly associate with the Last Frontier.

A photographer himself, Schultz represents 80 others whose work primarily reflects Alaska outdoor, recreation, lifestyle and scenic scenes. His clients run the gamut, from corporate suits to travel editors - everyone hooking to sell a product or tell a story with an Alaska image.

With a catchy marketing line - "Hot Shots from a Cool Place" - that plays on Alaska's mystique, Schultz has turned his upstart business into a profitable stock agency in just under seven years. Big-name corporations like Subaru, Avon, AT&T and Coors tap on Schultz's door, as do prominent advertising agencies like DCA Advertising and national magazines such as Outside, Time, Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly.

The agency's images also show up in local print media, from ATU Telecommunications - an Alaska Stock Images photo graces this year's phonebook covers - to Spenard Builders Supply. Porcaro Blankenship, a local advertising agency, turns to Alaska Stock Images for its print media ads. The advertising agency has clients in the telecommunications and fishing industries, among others.

"They're trying real hard," said John Hume, senior art director at Porcaro. "The main reason anybody is going to use them is that they're Alaska specific."

Schultz agrees his business is firmly grounded in Alaska.

"We feel we have a niche and we want to be good at that," Schultz said recently. "Instead of a Wal-Mart, we want to be a boutique."

The stock agency's success blows even his mind.

When he started the company out of his home in 1990, Schultz...