Brown bear (ursus arctos) and red salmon (oncorhynchus nerka)

I watched this female brown bear capture many red salmon in the Brooks river of Katmai national park, in southwest Alaska. She had one cub of the year to feed, who watched from the river bank keeping alert for other bears. This picture was taken at a focal length of 700mm, which makes it seem closer than it actually was, but even still, I happened to be in a position that did not allow for me to back up easily, which sometimes happens photographing bears. The bear had approached me while chasing fish in the river, so I grabbed a few shots before she walked back to the bank to feed her cub. Photographing a moving subject, in low light, with a long lens resulted in many out of focus shots. The depth of field is very narrow at f/4 at this distance, and the eye needs to be sharp. This was a successful one, and I liked how it reveals the dexterous manner in which the bears can handle fish, she is holding it with her teeth by the dorsal fin.

I have shot extensively at Katmai, and you can see more images on my website: Katmai National Park and Brown bears

I’ve been digging through some files from that latter part of 2011, doing some clean up work and getting folders in a completed state. Occasionally I will shoot a series of images which are to be stitched into a larger file in post production. I do this for panoramas, and sometimes to increase the overall resolution due to focal length and/or scene restrictions. This is one of those made from four images. I was set up along the beach in Katmai National Park and knew that the bears make this morning journey. I missed a few chances for simply not being ready, but this time, I had set my focal length to 35mm, anticipating the basic composition of the bear. After I shot the series of the bear walking along, I kept the camera on the tripod and shot three images in a vertical direction, which includes the tree and sky. This affords a nice, high resolution file very suitable large publication.

Brown bear shakes off water, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Canon 1D Mark IV, 50mm f/4L IS, 1/800 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 200

With high water in the rivers in Katmai this year, brown bears did a lot of swimming and snorkeling for fish. This resulted in a lot of shaking off the water once emerging from dives. Backlighting offers some interesting contrast in these situations. This shows what a shutter speed of 1/800 does for that kind of motion. It does not completely freeze the water, but enough to reveal a slight tail on the water drops, which capture a little more backlight. Not like I thought this completely through at the time, but it is a pretty good setting. 1/1600 sec would have frozen the drops pretty good.

Bush plane on approach. Katmai National Park, Alaska. Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm f/4L IS, 1/800 sec @ f/8, ISO 200.

If you have traveled at all in Alaska, it is likely you have been in a bush plane to access many of the remote regions throughout the state. Whether it is a plane on floats or tundra tires, they are critical for getting to many great photo destinations. I have photographed extensively from the air (see my Alaska Aerial’s gallery) but the planes themselves are fun to photograph, as they fly through dramatic landscapes. The cloudy skies add some interest to the background space in this shot, as the plane banks on approach to land on a lake hidden behind the trees in Katmai National Park.

Kejulik mountains, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm f/4L IS, 1/400 sec @ f/5, ISO 200

On a morning walk in Katmai last fall the clouds were rolling, growing and dissipating quickly over the Kejulik mountains in Katmai National Park. While I don’ t normally use the 1D Mark IV for landscapes, I wanted the focal magnification factor that the 1.3x offered, turning my 500 into a 700 mm. It was happening fast so I grabbed a few frames of the clouds behind the jagged ridge of Mt Katonlinat. The photo was taken about 10:00 am. In a few minutes, the clouds were gone and without that white background to outline the ridge, the rock definition became difficult to see from such a distance. Clouds–when you see them making an interesting scene–shoot quickly.

I just returned from a trip to photograph the brown bears in Katmai National Park and a rapid change of gears has me headed for Arctic Alaska, in pursuit of polar bears, aurora borealis and Arctic wildlife. I’m co-guiding a group of photographers, who are very excited for what lies ahead in the next 10 days. I’ll try to share a few pics along the way depending on connectivity and time.

While this brown bear appears to be staring me down, he was far more concerned with the action that had happened behind me between a couple other bears. I just happened to be in a good spot to capture his deliberate look.

Brown bear, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm f/4L IS w/1.4x, 1/500 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 200

Triplet brown bear cubs of the year, Katmai National Park. Canon 1Ds Mark III, 500mm f/4L IS, 1/200 sec @ f/9, ISO 800. I used an aperture of f/9 to get enough depth of field so all three cubs would be in focus.

I took this image a few years ago in Katmai National Park, and it gets some attention for the cute factor I’m sure. These little brown bear cubs of the year were playful and fun to watch, as is often the case with very young bears. I also find the image interesting technically because it was taken with Canon’s 500mm f/4L IS lens, which is extremely sharp allowing for cropping tighter on a large 21MP file, when necessary. In this case, the photo is slight cropped, but still has plenty of  pixels to be printed at 20 x 30 inches without a problem.

I’ll be off the grid for a week or so on a remote trip photographing the bears again and I’ll share some images upon my return.

“There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.”

G. K. Chesterton

My growing affinity for something as intangible and transient as clouds is the result of years of treading the land and looking up. The magic and art of the sky is ever changing, fleeting, ominous, lovely and at times simply spellbinding. I don’t know if this is a hidden source for my fondness for landscape photography, but indeed, a dramatic happening in the clouds is a sure ingredient for a striking landscape photo. The big, open and ever changing skies that unfold across Alaska’s mountainous landscape is one aspect that ties me to this chunk of geography.  I wanted to share some with you here in a gallery.

Brown bear catches red salmon, Brooks falls, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Canon 500mm, 1/800 sec @ f/8, ISO 400.

This image of a brown bear catching a red salmon at Brooks falls in Katmai National Park is comprised of three independent images, stitched together to generate a panorama or 3:1 format image. This offers a high resolution file that embodies a wider format more suitable for some reproduction uses, for example, a billboard. In this case, I had the panorama concept in mind, but needed to capture the fish shot first. Once that was successfully completed, I then swung the camera to the right for two successive frames, with enough overlap to offer a reasonable seam. The moving water confuses photoshop’s automatic stitching program, but because of the somewhat blurry nature of the background, one can manually stitch it with very little difficulty. It was taken with a 500mm lens, which is a tight frame but it worked out well given the location of the bear in the distance at the base of the falls.