On the Prowl Photo

Photographer’s Note

Another random photo from my summer trip to Alaska. Here is an Alaskan brown bear, a grizzly, moving along the flats of "Pack Creek" during low tide. The bears here weigh-in at around 800 pounds, alghough this young male isn't quite that heavy yet. Admiralty Island has the highest concentration of brown bears in the world, roughly 1 bear per square mile on the 2,000 square mile island. That makes traveling here very interesting. I had a can of pepper spray as my only defense. My guide and I did see bears up close but we were in our kayaks offshore. For this bear I used a 300mm zoom (x 1.5 = 450 35mm equiv.) handheld. The outline of the bear is really just that...little in the way of detail. The graphic composition of the tidal flats and how that lays across the frame horizontally helps the image work. Hope you find it interesting.

JanD, Vaarna, Zolive, bizsu, mursaloglu has marked this note useful

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JanD (14681) 2008-01-21 6:52

Howdy Ted!
Amazing landscape. Wonderful colors. Very funny bear!
Regards!

Zolive (1654) 2008-01-21 7:07

Hi Ted
great shot, the bear walking on the tidal flats is very beautiful. Colors of the ground is amazing. I see you have a good equipement. Congratulations.
Olivier

Vaarna (303) 2008-01-21 7:10

Natural colours are wonderful!

Just the quality... but it's normal for zoom lenses. My advise - do not use the zomm lens at the minimum and maximums mm, in your case - not 100 and not 300 mm. My experience has approved, that the longest zoom is bad for the quality.

Once more abput the picture - many of bear's photografers have been killed by the bears. You're the lucky one :)

p.s. One point because of the quality.
Anything else - well done!

ilze

smarcell (14273) 2008-01-21 7:12

A very beautiful picture, where the bear is taken in its natural environment. It also has a very graphycal component, with great colors, and it is a beautiful composition in itself.
I have seen a couple of years ago a picture very similar to this, which was awarded by a prize in an international competition on Nature Photography. It was a grizzly bear in a typical fall landscape like this.
A sharper picture (professional photographer have also very professional lenses) would make this picture suitable for a wildlife magazine publication, to my opinion.
Regards Stefano

cabar (0) 2008-01-21 7:13

Nice shot, but I would correct a little bit the perspective to make the lines perfectly horizontal.

Fraipont (104) 2008-01-21 9:07

Nice colours and very nice composition ! Great !
Jean

bobocortis (14140) 2008-01-21 11:02

Hi Ted.
Beautiful colors.
Well done.
Bobo

bizsu (1011) 2008-01-21 14:45

Hi Ted,
Ffantastic colour horizon. The stripes are very interesting on the soil. The bear shows on the coloured soil well. Congratulate to the photo and to the courage.
Regards, Zsú

mursaloglu (5136) 2008-01-21 15:42

hello Ted
stunning great picture with colored diagonal and horizontal lines and great element of the beast on. Amazing. best regards ihsan

baba_flies (7953) 2008-01-27 2:20

Hello Ted! Wise decision using your zoom :) Sometimes I am surprised what people do. I saw bears in Kootenay National Park the other summer and people stopped and got out of their cars making photos (and flahsed the animal).

I find this a fantastic shot with the different lines of weed, rocks and sand, and the lonely male bear running through your picture - as your extra feature. You got him just right, still being in the left hand corner. In the middle it would have been only half as interesting. Very good indeed, and I personally don't see a lot of unsharpness, at least not that it would disturb me. Take care, Barbara.

marietom (31800) 2008-05-10 0:53

Hello ted,

Magnifique, cette composition de lignes colorées, avec cet ours qui se promène, j'aime beaucoup. Ca dépayse !
Bon we
Marie