My last post was of a very white bear, so this go round I decided to go very black
I find that capturing an interesting shot of a black bear is much more difficult than doing so with a grizzly bear, despite the fact that black bears are far more common and, in most situations, a little safer to approach. Before the trip where I captured this shot I realized that I didn't have many black bear shots in my collection that I really liked. So...I decided that during my annual trip to the Great Bear Rainforest of northern British Columbia in autumn of 2009 one of my goals should be to capture some "different" and/or interesting shots of black bears (even though the intent of the trip was to find and photograph white-coloured Spirit Bears and grizzlies). Well, if nothing else, this shot is different!
This image was captured under very low-light conditions. The bear was completely wet (from fishing in a stream) and the background (a creek bed full of dark coloured trees and rocks) was in deep shadow. I had to crank my ISO up quite high (ISO 2000) to give me manageable shutter speeds with the lens I was using and I knew that my image sensor's dynamic range would br pretty thin in this ISO range. It only took fairly faint light to illuminate this bear's wet head - the water reflected the light quite strongly. Given the relatively thin dynamic range I was working with I knew there was no way I could hold both highlight and shadow detail of this very high contrast scene, so I opted to REALLY lose shadow detail by under-exposing a lot (over 2 full stops). As I hoped, virtually everything in the frame - except a few portions of the bear - were lost to the shadows. I kind of like how the bear seems to be emerging from the darkness. And, of course, I have to give the bear full credit for giving me this great pose!
This shot is NOT a product of heavy Photoshop manipulation. In fact, I used only exposure adjustments (and a little colour de-saturation of the too blue bear) that could have easily been accomplished in a dark room (back in the dark ages). You don't ALWAYS need to be a Photoshop guru...
Subject: Black Bear (
Ursus american kermodei) emerging from shadows
Location: Northern BC Coast (Great Bear Rainforest), Canada
Camera: Nikon D3
Lens: Nikkor 600 mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S VR lens - handheld. VR on and in "Normal" mode.
Exposure: 1/160s at f6.3. ISO 2000. -2.33 stop compensation from matrix metered exposure.
Crop: Cropped from horizontal - this is the full frame vertically (right portion of image cut off)
All the contextual information surrounding this shot (field notes, all camera settings and processing details, conservation, etc.) can be found at:
http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/mammals/bears/detail_3.html.
Comments and feedback greatly appreciated...probably better to view larger version prior to doing so...
Cheers...
Brad
PS: My next post will be a much "sunnier" portrait...
Comments
27 commentsI quite like this kind of imagery, very graphic and with a great mood. Love the eye standing out and the paw slowly fading back into the dark, very well seen Brad!
My only very minor nit is the front ear, because there is only a very small portion of that ear visible it keeps drawing my eye away from the rest of the image and I'd prefer it to be just a tad more visible, but I realize that was impossible here since you did not control the light
Just my 2 (over critical) cents!
p.s. darkening that ear would not work either, because then you;d have a 1 eared bear
Nice stuff, and I have quite a few of the same thing where I decided to loose shadows to keep from blowing the highlights. You have given me inspiration to pull a few off the scrap table.
Well Done, and I totally agree with Vincent that this is a welcome departure from your usual!
This image has generated some email in my inbox - and I thought I'd share a few of them as there is at least one interesting point to consider. In the first email suggested that I might consider taking up photography as a profession (geez...hadn't thought of that
A. It could have been shot in a studio...and
B. the image looks too perfect (his words, not mine!), and, because nature is not this perfect, it detracts from the image.
I have to admit that I totally agree that this looks like a studio shot - I immediately had the same thought when I "finished" it (but it was hard enough getting the bear to sign a model release, no way would have I tried to convince it to leave the Great Bear Rainforest and travel to a studio!). What I'm not sure of, tho', is whether this detracts from the image or not. The image is a bit of an abstract and I readily admit that it is not intended to represent the scene as seen by the eye...I INTENTIONALLY under-exposed the image to lose shadow detail...
Anyway...anyone with an opinion on this topic (i.e., is the image too clean and thus too artificial looking?) please feel free to speak out about it!
Cheers...
Brad
When I saw this I figured you had purposely underexposed, and I'm really impressed with the results. The texture in the bear's face and eyes really makes it look like a painting. Perhaps that's an optical illusion... a byproduct of the lighting on the emerging face and the eye not seeming to match the jet black background?
Regardless, it's a very interesting image.
Max
About the too clean stuff, well... thats just a (large) movement in nature photography of people who want you to go into nature with a big copy machine and depict everything as is, thus killing all creativity and vision. While it's fine if people think this for themselves, sadly most of the time they try to impose that vision on every photograph they see, which is absolutely rediculous.
So please keep on making more of these images, in my view they are very graphic and visually appealing!
Brad, its your image, and you made it the way you saw it. If some have a problem with that so be it.
You have my thanks and my appreciation. You have set the bar very high indeed!
Phil Hodgkins
Very cool shot, but the muzzle looks really weird to me ... I've never seen a black bear look like that at all. The lighting is extraordinary, but for the eye to be as bright as it is, the rest of the image seems unbalanced, to me.
The image doesn't look underexposed at all, to me, and certainly not 2 stops .. 2 stops brighter and this would look WAY over-exposed, to me - unless you're talking about exposure of the b/g only.
I love the pose - the moment is perfect.
Cheers
Carl
I'd like to thank everyone for their feedback on this image. While I have to admit I quite like how the image came out, when I posted it I knew it was a sort of "love it or hate it" type of image and wasn't sure of the response it would get. So it's really nice to see that there was such a high proportion of positive comments. I'm thinking this tells me that this image might do well as a limited edition print.
A few specific response to statements/issues:
1. Vincent - you said:
Oh, I've never had a problem with abstract photography (in fact, I have a whole section on my website dedicated to abstracts). But I'm not sure I'd call this image "abstract" - more "interpretational"...
Anyway...no problem with abstracts from my perspective. What I have a problem with is misrepresentation of work (e.g., claiming that a dramatically modified image is exactly as seen in the field) and the feeling that all wildlife shots need to be ultra-clean and without imperfections (like the odd strand of grass overlapping a subject)
2. Carl - you said:
OK - if I see that bear again I'll tell him/her she has a weird muzzle
3. To Philip H: Thank you very much - your comment was very moving and I really appreciate it!
4. And finally - Tony: You have done something that few have done - left me speechless. I can't find the words to describe how I felt when you told me that this image was so good that it favourably compared to several similar images residing in your trash can. Uhhhh...thanks?????
Cheers all...
Brad
Lol....great stuff bud!
No sweat - I knew there was several ways to take your comment - knew you would be disappointed if I didn't take the bait and run with it...
Brad