Canadian Rainforest

ANY Rainforest is amazing. Although all rainforests are at the opposite end of the moisture-spectrum from deserts, if you ever visit one you come away with the same "take-home lesson" - that water and life are absolutely and inextricably linked! Unlike deserts, rainforests are just dripping with life!

Now, if you travel to a biologically intact Canadian rainforest you're very likely to come away with ANOTHER take-home lesson: They have a whole lot of BEARS in them! In this shot a young female grizzly bear is standing in the rainforest understory that is typical of British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest. She's actually on a very small rock pillar that becomes an island at high-tide - so all the vegetation you see here is growing on pure rock. The veil-like hanging lichen (including the strand draped over her cheek) is something called Methuselah's Beard...and visually it's one of my favorite aspects of the Great Bear Rainforest.

I've said many times about how I tend to like - and try to capture - reasonably "wide" views of wildlife that include a fair amount of their environment (what I call an "enviroscape") or even a lot of the landscape (i.e., an "animalscape"). Even though this shot is fairly "tightly" framed, I'd still consider it an enviroscape. This one is as much about the "scene" as it is about the bear per se!

Subject: Sub-adult female Grizzly (Ursus arctos) draped in vegetation
Location: Khutzeymateen Inlet, northern BC coast, Canada
Camera: Nikon D5
Lens: Nikkor 70-200mm f4 VR zoom @ 155mm. Hand-held from Zodiac boat. VR on and in "Normal" mode.
Exposure: 1/200s @ f9; ISO 2500. -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/detail_9.html.

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).