The Watchman

When you're a young grizzly living in a region that's jam-packed with other grizzlies - many much bigger than yourself - it makes good sense to pay attention to your surroundings. This young bear had cleverly positioned itself on top of a rock pillar that at high tide becomes an island and that has a great view in all directions. Only a few moments before I captured this image the bear had been laying down and resting peacefully on the thick moss blanketing the top surface of the rock pillar. Then it abruptly stood up and stared into the distance - and right at a larger bear coming its way. Its vigilance and survival instincts gave us this unforgettable pose in one of the most beautiful settings imaginable...even without the striking hanging lichens (known as Methuselah's Beard - Usnea longissima) the setting would have been stunning. But add in that lichen and you have total bear-photographer nirvana - pure bearadise! ;-)

When confronted with a scene like this it's easy to be so awestruck that you forget the technical end of photography. I tend to be a major stickler on how depth-of-field (and out-of-focus zones) are used in a photo. As this scene was evolving I kept telling myself to "remember the DoF"...and thus forced myself to keep thinking "...stop down...stop down...stop down". Fortunately, I had a camera in my hands (a Nikon D5) that allowed me to use an ISO high enough (ISO 3600) to let me stop down the aperture enough (in this case to f10) to keep the critical moss and foreground in sharp focus AND a shutter speed (1/200s) I was sure I could hand-hold.

Yep...there's always an "f8 and be there" component to wildlife photography. But even when you DO manage to be in the right place at the right time you have to keep your wits about you and the technical side of your brain going!

Subject: Sub-adult Grizzly (Ursus arctos) on the lookout
Location: Khutzeymateen Inlet, northern BC coast, Canada
Camera: Nikon D5
Lens: Nikkor 70-200mm f4 VR zoom @ 200mm. Hand-held from Zodiac boat. VR on and in "Normal" mode.
Exposure: 1/200s @ f10; ISO 3600. -0.67 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.
Crop: Almost full frame (less than 5% crop for compositional purposes)

A lot more info about this shot - including a 2400 pixel version it - can be found on my website using the link immediately below.

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

Comments and critiques welcomed - probably best to view the larger version (or, better yet, the new detail view) 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).