Kissed by the Light

Kissed by the Light

One from 2011 that I hadn't gotten around to processing until just recently (oops...).

I captured this image of a grizzly cub coming down to drink at sunset near the end of one of my Khutzeymateen photo tours in 2011. It represented a "breakthrough" moment which we had been hoping to see for about 5 days. This cub, along with its sibling, were exceptionally wary and distrustful of us, even though their mother was calm and relaxed when we were around. Day-by-day the cubs had been becoming slightly more comfortable with us, and on this evening they finally let down their guard and accepted us. About five minutes before this cub came to the water's edge, mom had come down to get a drink and, after doing so, "woofed" at her reluctant cubs until they finally (and painfully slowly!) made their way to the water's edge to grab their final drink of the day before bedding down. It was a special treat for all of us on our final night of our photo tour. To say it was an incredible way to end things off is a huge understatement!

I loved how the low-angle sun illuminated the bear's left eye (right side of the image), especially how it picked up lashes and hairs surrounding the eye. The low, low angle I shot the image from was accomplished from extended my body over the pontoon of the Zodiac I was in (my camera and 400mm lens was only inches above the water's surface when I released the shutter on this one).

Subject: Grizzly (Urus arctos) cub drinking at sunset
Location:Khutzeymateen Inlet, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D3
Lens: Nikkor 400mm f2.8 VRII lens - hand-held from floating zodiac. VR on and in "Normal" mode.
Exposure: 1/250s @ f8; ISO 720. -0.33 compensation compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.
Crop: Moderate - this is only 85% of full-frame

Like almost always, additional details about the image (including processing details and more) is available here:

http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/latest/.

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

Cheers...

Brad

PS: I head off tomorrow (Tuesday) AM to lead this year's Khutzeymateen photo tours and will be gone for a few weeks. So won't be able to post until around the end of the first week in June. Hope everyone has good luck with light and finds cooperative subjects while I'm gone!