Sunset Magic...
I just got back from my annual pilgrimage (and Photo Tours) to the Khutzeymateen Inlet in the Great Bear Rainforest. Had a fantastic time - nice light, cooperative bears, and good company (furry and otherwise). Suffice to say that a good time was had by all! In terms of my own shooting - I went in with a different "objectives" from past years. First, I decided to shoot primes (and one in particular - the 400mm f2.8 VR) almost exclusively. Second, I decided I wanted to focus on portraits and on "visual contrast" as much as possible this year, with an emphasis on using negative space whenever I could thrown in for good measure. I'm kinda happy with how things worked out...
As a rule, I generally avoid shooting in direct sunlight. But there are times at sunrise and sunset when a subject just wanders into a directly lit (or in this case, back- and top-lit) scene that and you end up in a situation where natural magic just happens. This was one of those times!
I captured this image while we were following an adult male grizzly along the shoreline after it had had an extremely aggressive interaction with a female grizzly with two cubs. Long story short, the male grizzly literally stumbled upon the mother and cubs while they were quietly foraging along a beach. Everyone (including us!) was startled. The male instantly charged the 3 smaller bears and a chase ensued. The female and cubs weren't far from trees and mother griz first priority was to ensure that both cubs were safely "stashed" away. Then she turned herself AND the tables! Suffice to say that the male grizzly is likely going to think twice before playing this game again! The roars, splashes, and ferocity was a spectacle I'll never forget. And then to have the chaos replaced under two hours later with this tranquil scene...well...all I can say is that Nature never fails to blow me away!
A couple of comments about the image. First - NOPE, no hyper-saturation going on here - the colours WERE amazing! I bumped the saturation of the foreground water by 8%, but that's it! Virtually all the colour in this image comes from careful control over exposure.
Second - looking for a cool technique to "save the day" when you slightly screw-up on an image? On my original capture I left slightly too little space between the hind-most paw and the left side of the frame (the inability to really "study" a frame is one of the pitfalls of hand-holding a massive lens). I tried to add about 200 pixels to the left side of the frame using Content Aware Fill (in Photoshop CS5) in one fell swoop but there were obvious repeating patterns and out-of-place objects added to the new canvas. So, instead I broke the process into 3 separate repetitive steps (adding about 60 pixels to the canvas then filling with Content Aware Fill on each successive step). The result? Well...you're looking at it!
Oh, and the bear - yes it IS much lighter on the top and dark below - this is NOT an artifact of processing.
Subject: Brown Bear (
Urus arctos) working the shoreline at sunset
Location: Khutzeymateen Inlet - Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D3s
Lens: Nikkor 400 mm f/2.8 VRII lens - handheld from floating Zodiac
Exposure: 1/400s at f6.3. ISO 320. -0.67 stop compensation from matrix metered exposure.
Crop: About 90% of full frame - small crop from top and bottom only
As usual, more info about the image (including more processing details, etc) available here on my website:
http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/latest/detail_3.html.
Comments & critiques welcomed. Probably better to view larger version first...
Cheers...thanks for looking...
Brad
Comments
13 commentsEDIT: I'm studying this some more and it's not quite as top-heavy as expressed in my first impression, since the bear is more centered in the frame. But that bottom chunk of water still isn't balancing the frame for me.
Looking forward to splashing pics. I assume you got them...
Max
Thanks for the feedback. I tried more horizontal crops but they seemed too flat to me. To my eye (personal preference thing) the negative space added by that room on the bottom supplied more depth to the image and lead the eye better to the subject. I have nothing a priori against square crops (some seem to), but in this case it didn't work for me. But each to their own
Cheers...
Brad
Great over all feeling of the image, love the color and contrast of the image. This image to me shows the travel and venture of the bear with his head down looking like hes on a mission or something. The top rim light seems to highlight that aspect for me. wondering how this image would look with the bear placed higher in the frame more in the top third? with more water showing if you have it in original capture? the leading line of the green grass tend to be the first thing i see when looking at the image and somewhat leads my eye out of frame in the opposite way the bear is traveling. that why i think of placing the bear higher in the image. But im being super picky.
Shawn
You have managed an image with lots of triangles. That's a good thing. There's the slope of the grass hill, where the triangle base is the brown line, the slope of the back, which forms another although unfinished triangle, and the one between the hind legs, other between the front leg and neck/chin. All of these wonderful shapes create interest, draw the eye, while the blurred water, and lots of it, relaxes the eye making it pleasant to view and re-view. My opinion, anyways.
Ahhh...you're getting my thinking...and what I saw in the field - I was wondering who would pick up on the triangles (usually Lon jumps in first on those type of things, but he's away right now). Altho' not a "typical" image from me and quite different from the others in my bear collection, I have to admit that right now this is among my favourite bear images. As Shawn picked up, this bear was all about business and on a mission. And I'm real comfortable going against the grain and trying to stretch myself. I wasn't about to revert to a horizontal or square crop, but totally appreciate the diversity of opinions (otherwise it would be REAL boring!).
Thanks for the feedback...
Cheers...
Brad
As to this first of what will hopefully be many photos from your recent pilgrimage ;^) in all honesty, had I not noticed this was one of yours I would probably have settled with my initial impression, which was: Always nice to see a shot of a Grizzly in the wild, but the image is much too dark for my taste and it's a real shame I can't discern anything of it's eye.
Seeing that this is one of yours, however, and knowing you always put a great deal of thought into your shots, I set my initial impressions to one side and read what you wrote ;^)
I now appreciate the lighting better as well as your choice of composition in line with your desire to work with more emphasis on using negative space, which I think you've achieved well here with this one. Now that they've been pointed out, I also very much like the triangular effects, something I've read about before in compositions but either I rarely actually notice them in images or they're simply not found in most I look at.
Having repeatedly looked at the larger version by now, I have to say though that the one thing I'm still caught up on is the absence of it's eye; perhaps it's just me, but I can't see any hint or glint of it, and the more I try to look for it the more of a distraction it becomes.
Very impressed with the completely unnoticeable effects of your adding canvas. Very much hope you got some shots of the action between the mum and the interloper and that you'll be sharing some of those with us soon :^)
Thanks for the feedback. RE: The eye. There's a catch-light in the eye that's very visible in the hi-res version of the image, just doesn't show at web size. Limitation of the medium and altho' I could have enhanced it to make it show at web size that kinda rubs me wrong - just a personal thing.
Cheers...
Brad
PS: While diplomacy and decorum are positive things to be thinking about while commenting on an image, don't worry about who posted the image in formulating your comment. I think you should just comment on an image based on its own merits and how you react to it. And probably not the best idea in the world to TELL someone you're giving the benefit of the doubt on the image because of who they are (some would interpret that as being a tad "charitable" and/or condescending).
By now you should have realized that my image posts are as much (or more) about making others think as they are about the "oohh, ahhh" factor they may or may not generate. If you think this is just another dark image of a bear, say it! To my mind, one of the dangers of image galleries like this is that they CAN lead to "group think" and homogenization of creativity, especially if a few strong personalities dominate the thinking and critiquing. So speaking your mind is a GOOD thing, even (especially??) if it goes against the grain. When I posted this image I KNEW it wouldn't have universal appeal - after all, it's not intended literally (tho' it is close to what I saw in the field) - it's primarily about form (those sloping lines and triangles) and colour. The comments above demonstrate how it works for some and not others. I don't mind if you don't "get it" and spent time searching for the eye...to me the eye is pretty unimportant in this shot. But it's ALWAYS important to consider the feedback and then accept/reject it as you (the image creator) see fit...
PS: IMO your PS is very well worded and I am in 100% agreement; thumbs up!
You say: "Do think this needs to be seen as a really big image."
I totally agree.
And...you ask: "...does this bear look thin to you? Just wondering if it is an older bear."
Spring came late to most of BC, including the Khutzeymateen, with less grass available for the bears to forage on. I had the perception that the bears were a little behind on fat accumulation for late May...so your observation that the bear looks thin is probably valid. This isn't an old bear - it's an adult male a few years away from its prime - my best guess is that it's about 10 years old (+/- a year or two). So...of breeding age but not quite big enough yet to contend with the really big dominant males that control things in there (this spring there we saw 4 different males in the 1,000 lb plus range in there). These "adult-but-not-permitted-to-breed" males, along with the sub-adult males with testosterone flowing, tend to be on the cantankerous side and you definitely want to give them their space...
Cheers...
Brad
Although condescending thoughts couldn't have been further from my mind when I typed that remark up, from the perspective you've illustrated in your post-scripted response I can see how what I wrote could be misinterpreted. While I sincerely hope no one was offended by this, I'd like take the opportunity to apologize in case anyone was.