Emergence

One from my annual autumn trip into the Great Bear Rainforest on the northern BC coast in 2009.

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 one of my goals on the trip 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 - and I know it won't be everyone's cup of tea...

This wet bear was emerging from a very dark forest and fully in the shadows, except for it's face that was being struck by a beam of light filtering through the trees. I intentionally under-exposed the image to retain detail only on the bear's face and frontal region.

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: None - this is full frame

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