Tranquility
I captured this image during my
"Grizzlies of the Khutzeymateen" Instructional Photo Tour in late May. Timing of the tide and participant enthusiasm allowed us to get into the upper reaches of the inlet before the sun was up and the soft mist-softened light turned the entire area into pure eye candy. My "job" as tour leader has positives and negatives - it's absolutely wonderful to visit places like the Khutzeymateen on a regular basis. But while I do shoot images myself on my tours, one of my cardinal rules is that the client's photos come first. One of the on-the-ground consequences of this is that I stay in the back of the Zodiac and "work-around" everyone else. As a result there's no doubt I miss some images.
But, in this case, my "back-of-the-boat" positioning worked in my favour. About one minute before I captured this image the bear was in front of the Zodiac and quietly foraging on grass with a
"drop-dead gorgeous-I-don't-believe-what-I'm-seeing" background. Then, the bear abruptly moved around us and gracefully and smoothly entered the calm high-tide waters right behind the Zodiac! I instantly dropped as low as possible - both to get the heck out of the way and to get as low an angle as possible to shoot the scene from. And this is the result. Thank you Mr. Bear!
I got lucky on this shot in at least one other way. During this year's tours I was shooting Nikon's "new" AF-S 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 VR lens (I often shoot primarily with primes in the Khutzeymateen). And, I happened to have the 80-400mm mounted on my D4 when this scene unfolded. This bear was close, so I instantly zoomed all the way back to 80mm and captured a sequence of the entire scene - from the bear entering the water through to swimming to the opposite side of the channel. This one - where the bear's rear end is just clearing the dark green reflection line - is one of my favourites of the lot. To me it conveys the tranquility and peacefulness we all experienced that memorable morning. And it's just SO Khutzeymateen!
Subject: Male Grizzly Bear (
Urus arctos) taking a dip before sunrise
Location:Khutzeymateen Inlet, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D4
Lens: Nikkor AF-S 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 VR zoom @ 80mm - hand-held from floating zodiac. VR on and in "Active" mode.
Exposure: 1/320s @ f7.1; ISO 800. -0.33 compensation compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.
Crop: Extremely minor - Just a few pixels cropped from bottom
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
Comments
8 commentsMax
I really like the lush detail in the sedge on the left side and the sweeping arc of the waterway. The larger view shows adequate detail on the bear. A couple of technical items struck me. What passes as a horizon here seems tilted to the right about 2 degrees, easy to happen from the back of a zodiac. Easy fix, if in fact there really is a rotation? The other point is the irregular angularity of the brightest area in the foggy background above the bear's head. Might be an artifact from jpeg compression for uploading here?
I viewed this photo this morning and it has been on my mind all day, it's 11:46 pm now. A photo that has the ability to get under the viewers skin like that must be hitting the right notes.
A very tranquil image, whilst I know there must have been little light, I wonder if the image could just do with a little lift in light.
Like Gary I wonder what has caused the strange patterns in the central sky, if they are in the RAW I would definitely try to make them disappear.
Looks like you have two bears in this picture?
I was wondering if someone would point out the white "blotches" in the "sky". What you're looking at there is the toe of an avalanche slope on the background mountain - and the remaining pile of snow. So definitely not an artifact. Still uber-easy to remove on a background like that, but once it's a concrete element of the scene (rather than an artifact, removing it enters different terrain for me (ethics-wise). And, if you look closely, those snow patches produce a faint reflection on the calm water - a vertical line that leads STRAIGHT to the bear's head. So, if remove the snow, you also have to remove the reflection (otherwise the reflection makes no sense). Again, easy to do, but if I do then I'm at the point of "patching" up a lot of the image (and while I'm not certain I like the snow, I do like the reflection it produces).
Gary - glad to give you an "eye-worm"! Oh...on the apparent tilt - that horizon you're gauging by isn't flat - a 2 degree rotation to level that would have the bear swimming uphill (which I think is more of a problem - even to the laws of physics - than a tricky shoreline!
Cheers and thanks guys...will be interesting to see how others react to the snow...
Brad
I would never have known that the BG was in fact mountains, I imagined it to be an overcast sky
I would have thought the trees on the right climbing the slope would have been a giveaway!
Cheers...
Brad