An Inside Joke

Sharing an Inside Joke

So why do these bears appear so darned happy? Well, I think it's totally obvious - the bear on the left (a male) is trying to impress the fine looking female he's sitting beside with a bit of an inside joke - I only caught a bit of the punchline, but it ended with "...and you wouldn't believe how BAD that two-legged upright tasted - YUK!" Apparently she liked the joke...

In a sense this image is very "not me"...you know - "off-brand". I normally prefer images that have anything BUT front lighting, and I tend gravitate toward lighting that is much more "moody" than in this shot. And while this scene DOES capture some aspects of the Khutzeymateen Inlet where I travel to each spring, it's almost a little too "cliche" for my taste. So...why did I shoot it (and present it here). Well, for a number of reasons...

First... I've mentioned several times that I went into the Khutzeymateen Inlet in spring 2011 looking for images that worked in a vertical format, contained a degree of negative space, would work as a decent cover shot for a publication or could stand alone, and were both simple and moody. Well...if you consider "happy" as a mood, this image would qualify on all accounts. I could be easily convinced that happy IS a mood, but I don't think of it in the same as I do "moody", especially when that word is used to describe an image (as in "a moody image"). But, most importantly, I had a client who wanted everything on this list too, but made it real clear they wanted a "happy shot". So...CHECK - here ya go (and the client DID love the shot!). Well...most of us - including me - do live in the "real world" and we can't always just shoot to please ourselves. Sigh...

But if this isn't the "type" of image I like shooting, why post this image? Because I ran into a very unique "problem" to solve when processing this image (and one I've never had seen before). It's common knowledge that I regularly perform "exposure blends" (multiple raw conversions from a single file that differ in their exposure values and that are later blended in Photoshop). But with this image I was forced to produce a "white balance blend" to return the image to how I remember it looking in the field. Huh? When I first opened this image in my raw converter, it chose a VERY warm white balance (6174 degrees K). At that setting the background looked perfect, but the foreground (bears and grasses) were far too warm. I monkeyed with the white balance until the foreground looked right - which turned out to be 4894 degrees K. And, at that setting the background was WAY too cool! So I solved the problem by making my first "white balance blend" where the background was processed from raw using one set of white balance values and the foreground with another set of values. And, of course, I blended the multiple images using Photoshop.

So what happened with the white balance of this image? I can't say I'm completely sure. I do shoot in Auto White Balance mode for all my outdoor work (I don't find it effective indoors, but it works well with naturally-lit scenes). If you look closely at this scene you'll notice that the sky is partially filled with clouds and that some parts of the scene are in the shade (produced by the patchy cloud cover). I'm guessing that the differing fore- and background white balances were produced because areas on the ground had differing thickness of cloud cover separating them from the sun (notice the thin wisps of cloud covering even the "blue" portions of the sky) and that this differentially impacted on the white balance of the foreground and background. Just what you need - one MORE thing to watch for in your photography!!

Subject: Flirting grizzlies (Urus arctos enjoying a good joke (and each other's company)
Location: Khutzeymateen Inlet - Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D3x
Lens: Nikkor 70-200 mm f/2.8 VRII lens (@ 110mm) - handheld from floating Zodiac
Exposure: 1/250s at f11. ISO 110. -1.0 stop compensation from matrix metered exposure.
Crop: Minor - this is about 85% of full-frame image (15% removed off top of image)

All the gory details about this shot (processing details, conservation, etc.)

http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/mammals/bears/detail_96.html.

Comments and critiques welcomed - probably best to view the larger version prior to doing so!

Cheers...thanks for looking...

Brad