The Traveller

The Traveller

In the spring of 2015 the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary on British Columbia's northern coast seemed to be in a bit of social chaos. While we can't say for sure what caused it, we suspect that the absence of the long-time and undisputed dominant male in the area (who seemed to control and stabilize the social framework) left a bit of a power vacuum and several "wannabe" males were trying to take his spot. Those who follow Middle East politics should be able to relate to this type of power struggle! Anyway...one consequence of the social instability was that bears in the sanctuary were doing a lot more traveling than normal and, in most cases, this meant they spent a lot of time working their way along a shoreline. These spontaneous peregrinations are always fascinating to watch, but given the thickness of the forest and how quickly the bears move in and out of view, they're incredibly tough to photograph.

I always strive (not always successfully) to "see" scenes in several ways when I'm in the field - I find myself continually re-evaluating if a tight crop of the subject is the best option OR if I should back off a little and capture a "animal-in-environment" (or "enviroscape") shot OR if I should back way off and shot a "animal in landscape" (or "animalscape") shot. Because I had a wide focal range zoom in my hand when this bear was moving along the shore (the Sigma Sport 150-600mm zoom) I had all framing options available to me. When we pulled our Zodiac into the position I shot this image from I was immediately struck by the overall aesthetic appeal of the "big picture" scene - everything from the calm foreground water, through to the contrasting brown fucus growing on the shoreline rocks and to the beautiful conifer trees with bright green new growth on their limbs. We knew this bear was coming in our direction and I guessed he might pop out in the small opening where you see him now. So I framed up the shot exactly as seen (this is a full-frame shot), waited, and snapped off a burst of shots as the bear popped out of the woods exactly where I hoped (for once I guessed right!).

After leading photo tours for a decade or so, I've noticed one of the things many wildlife photographers struggle with is "seeing" the bigger picture - it seems like the most common "default" mode is "get closer" (and closer, and closer, and closer!) to their subjects. When photographing carnivores this can have a lot of negative consequences, including having to spend a fortune on long telephoto lenses and/or putting oneself in a situation that is bad for you and/or bad for the subject! Shooting enviroscapes and/or animalscapes can remove the need to get excessively close to your subject, which is often a good thing (even for the reputation of wildlife photographers in the eyes of the public). And, shooting GOOD animalscapes and/or enviroscapes can be incredibly challenging and absolutely requires that the photographer has strong compositional skills (and a great eye for for lighting, contrast, and more...) and strong technical skills. Personally, I appreciate good wildlife 'scapes far more than I appreciate most close-up shots of wildlife (which often could of easily been captured in a zoo or other captive environment).

Subject: Grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) travelling the shoreline
Location: Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary, northern BC Coast, Canada
Camera: Nikon D750
Lens: Sigma Sport 150-600mm zoom @ 200mm. Hand-held from floating zodiac. OS on and in OS1 mode.
Exposure: 1/200s @ f7.1; ISO 1250. -1 stop compensation compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.
Crop: None - this is full-frame

A lot more info about this shot - including a 2400 pixel version of the shot - can be found here on my website...

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

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

Cheers...

Brad

PS: Like all wildlife images on my website and that I post on NPN, the subject is fully wild and completely unconstrained. Besides the potential impact of my presence, nothing has been done to intentionally alter or affect the ongoing behavior of the subject and, of course, there has been no use of any form of bait or other form of wildlife attractants (including vocalizations)