Three Bears departing, Kinak Bay, Katmai National Park, Alaska
Somehow this evening I ended up in my unprocessed folder from my 2009 trip to Alaska. As I poked around a bit reflecting back on how great it was spending so much time around bears, I decided to bring a few out for processing and putting up in my gallery.
These three bears were a mother and her two yearling cubs. We hung around them quite a bit while we were anchored in Kinak Bay in Katmai National Park. I remember how one was still quite dependent on mom to catch fish, while the other seemed to be a natural fisherman.
I also remembered how much I liked this particular area of shoreline. The zig-zag of the shore created a lot of triangles in the frame. With the three bears, there is quite a bit of repeating threes in the frame. Even the bears make a triangle. It isn’t often when so much comes together in one frame. All I was missing was a little girl named Goldilocks. Maybe next time.
I added a few more images in my gallery here: Brown bear pictures
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Alaskan Brown Bear
This image is a survivor from a recent culling of my brown bear photos from my Alaska trip so long ago ago now. I have developed sufficient detachment from many of these images that I can edit rather ruthlessly. Yeah, I still have a lot to delete. Many still remain in picture purgatory.
I particularly liked the rim lighting on this bear that accentuated the characteristic grizzly hump. In fact, the lighting on the bear is what I liked the most, not necessarily the surroundings. So I began to play with this image in Lightroom a bit to see if I could maintain what I liked the most, while reducing the impact of the rest. I ended up going with a monochrome image. But a pure black and white image just seemed too cold to me given the warm color of the bear’s fur. So I added a little warm toning that resulted in this final verison.
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Brown bear cub photo, Katmai National Park, Alaska
Lately it seems like I have had a bit of attention deficit disorder in my posts and in my photography as well. In between working some orders for clients, I would pick a few images, work on them, get a bit bored, and move on to something new. I have probably started and stopped a half dozen posts of so of ideas that started, but never quite came to clear conclusions. I have have a few projects in the works, but not enough material to formulate where I am headed with them yet.
It is a situation that reminded me of this moment with this bear cub. While waiting around for some fish to be brought to shore by Mom, the cub would wander around, sniff rocks, and gnaw on this branch. The cub would again wander off, and then wander back, gnaw on the stick some more. He (she?) really didn’t seem to know what to do until that fish was on shore, but just kept returning to that stick. It was coming back to something familiar. Is it just a way to pass the time, or does it serve some purpose?
In a lot of ways, I see similarities in this little story to how I have been working on photography . Sometimes there is a nice juicy fish to dig into (like a new lens , new project, client order or idea) and stay with for awhile. Food that nourishes, food that replenishes body and soul. However, when its done, it is back to where I was. I am just wandering around gnawing on familiar sticks. I am not sure how much nutrition that is providing other than just keeping my teeth clean. I am certainly fishing for myself, but the meals are leaving me hungry. Perhaps this is part of the process of discovering new and different nourishment?
Whatever it is, bear with me. Sometimes you will see splinters from the stick, other times maybe some leftovers of the fish. And if I should find a new delicacy, I will certainly be writing about it here. :-)
p.s.
I have had some comment spam get through lately and have implemented a new control. One of these yahoos really hit the blog hard last night. There is a checkbox in the comments section that you need to mark stating you are NOT a spammer. It is a small extra step, but from what I have read it is effective for now. There is nothing I hate worse than to think someone checked the box to be notified of new comments and then some spammer ends up sending something to a reader through my site. So sorry if any of that got through to you.
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Scarface of Katmai
Hard to believe I didn’t introduce this big guy to you folks sooner. Obviously from my bear trip last fall, but this particular bear made quite an impression for obvious reasons. Not only was this male boar huge, but the scar across his nose gave him, well to put it bluntly – the total badass look. I still get a little freaked out when I look at this image and think about being so close to an animal like this.
The male bears were probably the most shy of all of them. It took quite awhile for Scarface to make close approaches to us through the river. I particularly wanted to catch a moment when those claws were clearly visible.
If you ever saw the movie Scarface, and if this bear could talk, I think it is likely he would say a lot of what Tony Montana said in the movie.
“…The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There’s a bad guy comin’ through! Better get outta his way!” – Tony Montana, from the movie Scarface, 1983.
Only this bear’s little friends are his claws instead of a machine gun. :-)
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Wandering the Geographic
I have read a lot of articles and writeups about folks who advocate shooting only RAW file formats and those who shoot JPEGs only. For the most part, I say – to each his own. It doesn’t really matter to me what others shoot with. There is one aspect however, beyond the number crunching, beyond the print comparisons, that is often overlooked – the future. I think that beginners and experienced alike need to be conscious of what the implications of their file format choice not only means to them today, but also 10, 15, 20 years down the road. I believe the current albatrosses that hang around RAW capture’s neck are the limitations on the technology of output devices – print publications, monitors, and most printers can barely touch reproducing all of the possible data that a RAW file captures.
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