It is quite difficult to portray animal emotions in photographs or reveal something about their nature in a fraction of a second. It is so much easier with human facial expressions that we associate with happiness, sorrow, or anger. Even colors in photographs, or the lack thereof, can help establish certain moods. Even then, one person’s reaction to a certain characteristic can be completely opposite from another’s.
Solitary Bear
This first image I wanted to portray isolation and solitude. It is an interpretation of how I thought these bears were at certain times in their lives. Bears are solitary animals except in times of mating or caring for their cubs. I thought a single bear, emphasized by the starkness of a monochrome image and simple graphical elements helped communicate that aspect of their lives.
Portrait of happiness??
But what about a happy bear? I would tend to think a well fed, no competition from other bears, and feeling safe from threats could be situations leading to a happy bear. None of these translate very well into a single photograph. I suppose then we rely on our own familiarity with facial expressions. Now, I don’t know if this bear was overly happy or not, or perhaps just suffering a bit of gas from sucking on a rotting fish head. However, the general reaction from others who have seen this image seems to be quite uniform.
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Bear reflection
I was fortunate enough to capture a few scenes with some nice reflections of these coastal brown bears (aka. grizzly bears aka. ursus arctos ). It seemed to be a rare occurrence when a bear would walk along the water’s edge and at the same time have the water calm enough for a reflection, AND be in a good position to anticipate their walking. The bears were obviously always in control of where they were headed. But once they started in a certain direction, you could predict some possible opportunities like these.
Walking bear
Let me tell you – salty seawater muck with algae, decaying jellyfish, mud, bear scat, and fish heads has a particularly nasty smell to it. Go figure! :-) Ahhh, the smell of nature.
These reflections represent to me the interconnectivity of the bears with the water in this area of Kinak Bay, Katmai National Park.
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Earlier this year, there was some banter back and forth between fellow photographers Carl Donohue and Ron Niebrugge about being able to photograph a wolverine. I read with interest as I would have liked to see one of them get a shot of one. Heck, both of these guys have spent more time in the wilderness than I’ll ever see. So at best, I was watching as a bystander to see how this turned out. Seems the stakes were pretty high, Ron already offering up dinner and what not, putting his phone number out there, probably even wrote it on a few bathroom walls. People were dressing up as wolverines on his front lawn trying to lure this elusive creature into focal range. Carl was resorting to resurrection attempts. What would they try next?
Well, you know where this is headed… One day on the skiff looking for bear activity in Kinak Bay, in Katmai, we spotted a dark animal cruising a distant shoreline. Our captain motored the skiff slowly towards the shore to attempt to identify what this critter was. It wasn’t a wolf, coyote or fox…and it was moving quick. It wasn’t long before most everyone realized what it was. I believe it was a first time sighting for everyone on the skiff. Little did I know I was now a contender in this little contest! (more…)
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Mt. McKinley
Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature’s darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature’s sources never fail. – John Muir, Our National Parks, 1901
I read this quote from Muir recently and was thinking about the cleansing one gets from fresh air, wilderness, and simply being in nature. Then I thought, what if the quote were reversed? From nature’s perspective, the energy and cleansing would not be in enjoying the company of human beings, but probably to be rid of us all together. As I stare at this image of Mt. McKinley, so majestic and grand, I feel quite insignificant. This mountain doesn’t need me, or does any place like it – from the forests to the streams to the ocean. They don’t need my appreciation of their beauty or for anyone to photograph them. Such trivial things only become important in trying to protect what we do not want to destroy.
Even if we were to obliterate ourselves, and wreak havoc on our environment, I have a feeling this mountain would still be there.
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Carl Donohue mentioned in his comments on my previous bear blur post;
“.. bears are just hard to do motion blurs with .. their gait is much of a wobble that they end up looking weird, most of the time ..”
I tend to agree with him, but sometimes you get lucky. By the way, Carl was also in Katmai the weeks after I was there in some of the interior areas and came back with some fantastic stuff, so be sure to check out the link to his journal.
I came across a few images that illustrate this challenge… first off, you need the bear moving faster than their normal wobbly gait. This time of year, it seems to be asking for a lot. They are focused on eating, eating, and more eating for their winter dormancy. They don’t have to run too far to pound on a fish. But, stick one bear too close to another bear’s fish… and a chase ensues…
The Case Starts...
Since you have to wait awhile for this moment to start or happen at all, I wasn’t really setup to do blurs – I had my lens at f5.6 and ISO 1250 doing more typical shots. This only gave me 1/400 sec when this chase started, which really wasn’t fast enough to stop the action in the image above. The picture is a bit soft, and yet not really having the look of an intentional blur. I didn’t have much time to change ISOs and apertures for blurs, but quickly dialed in f22 for the next shots. This at least got me down to 1/20 second, just about right actually. (more…)
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