I’ve updated a blog post made a long time ago, and included a few more pictures and discussion about the areas noted. I thought it was appropriate as I’m beginning to make plans for the summer photography season, and I’ll likely include all four of these destinations in one fashion or another in 2010. See the post here: Your favorite place to photograph?

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.

Rain, moist air, and wind direction have given Fairbanks residents some reprieve from the forest fire smoke that has in the past few weeks made air quility very bad. Since I have not photographed much recently due to this, I thought I’d make a post from a previous trip to Katmai National Park.

This frame of a  young brown bear fishing in Naknek lake at sunrise was taken from the lower bear viewing platform at Brooks Camp.

The “sunrise” moment is pretty short and quick, and getting clear morning skies, some nice clouds, and a bear doing what you want all at the same time is not an easy grab shot. This bear showed some promise, but never quite moved into the spot I was wishing for.  Sunrise is a favorite time for me to shoot, however, it happens quickly and requires some foresight about specific location, in contrast to the sunset hour which gives much more time to survey the situation. Another thing I enjoy about sunrise is that there are generally fewer people up and about-especially with Alaska’s very early summer sunrise hours. I had a few mornings of clear weather, and while the weather was right, the bear activity was lacking at that specific hour.

On a recent trip to Katmai National Park to photograph the brown bears, I grabbed this shot of an Osprey flying by with a fish in its talons. I had just removed my 1.4x converter, which dropped my focal length from 700 to 500. I could have used that extra length but it all happened pretty fast and I’m glad for the shot I did acquire. This frame is slightly cropped. The Osprey has a pretty intriguing way of traveling with its captured prey; notice how it points the fish forward to reduce wind drag when flying.

For the coastal brown bears of Katmai national park, salmon is a vital part of their diet. How they capture these fish varies: some catch them with their mouth as the fish jump the falls, as noted in the previous blog photo;  some steal fish that other bears catch; some sit nearly submerged in the water and wait for the fish to bump their legs, then grab them;  some scavenge the remains discarded by other bears, and some chase schools of salmon and leap on a targeted fish. I call this lunge feeding, although I don’t know if it is truly a technical term. It is however, fun to watch, and fun, but challenging to photograph.

In the picture posted here, I was caught a little off guard, not expecting this bear to take off chasing fish. Actually, I was photographing a Savannah sparrow in the willows along the bank of the river and heard the splashing water behind me. I turned around and started shooting, this frame is one of the last ones when the bear was closest and had captured the fish. In many ways, it is an “almost” since my shutter speed was only 1/250 of a second, and not quite enough to freeze the bear. Had I anticipated this event, I would have been at 400 ISO at least for depth of field and shutter speed.  Notice the crop below that reveals the motion blur of the bears face.

I like the blur on the fish tail and the water droplets, but would prefer a little more sharpness on the head of the bear. But that is the way it goes. I did shoot other bears lunge feeding, but this is the only one that actually caught a fish in a position to be photographed.

I recently spent a few days at Katmai National Park photographing the famous congregation of brown bears that fish vigoruously during the summer months, storing up the nourishment to get them through a long winter hibernation. The National Park is large, and the region I visited is more specifically know as Brooks falls, or Brooks camp. If you have seen a photo of a bear catching salmon at a waterfall, there is a high probability it was taken on the Brooks river. Although this sort of photo has been heavily published, it is surprisingly more complicated to acquire than one may think. There are many factors that need to line up during one’s visit to make it happen.

They include:

• good light,
• fish jumping at the right time,
• a bear at the falls that catches fish with his mouth (not his feet–which many do),
• the bear needs to be positioned right,
• the fish has to jump at the right height,
• and it needs to jump in a position so the bear turns slightly toward you the photographer.
• And then of course, you have to be ready and take the frame at the exact time.

All of these things can happen, and do happen, but it takes some persistence on the photographers part, and then the combination of other factors to mesh. As for me, I’m not that fond of standing in one place for a long time waiting for these elements to coalesce, but, very simply, that is the way it has to be done. Fortunately, on my last trip, I was able to grab a few shots, and in the next few posts I’ll discuss some further details about lens selection and exposure settings in this highly popular bear photo destination.

Where is your favorite place to photograph?

I’m often asked this question, but find it very difficult to answer. Part of Alaska’s lure and fascination to me is found in its tremendous diversity of environment. Sampling from one makes the others uniqueness more prominent. I like winter because of summer and I like summer in part, because of winter. Change and diversity really make travel across this landscape both distinctive and remarkable. Then there is the equation of wildlife, which is quite different in the arctic than in southeast Alaska’s marine waters, both of which are astonishing in their own right. So as unsatisfying as it seems to not “name” a particular spot or location, Alaska’s collective spaces win me over. I was raised in the Midwest and became addicted to wide open spaces very young. I like the ability to see for long distances and across great vistas. Alaska feeds this addiction well.

Often a given location is great for one particular subject, but has a few drawbacks in other ways. For example, Katmai National Park at Brooks Falls is an amazing place for brown bear photography, but for this very reason, there are lots of people there. Dealing with groups of people can far more difficult than dealing with the bears!

So instead of naming a favorite, I’ll list a few places that I enjoy photographing—mainly from a photographic perspective, not necessarily the pure nature experience or absence of people. They are not secret spots in any measure, rather well known really, but they are that for a reason indeed.

Katmai National Park

I like the topographical relief of this area , the nearby mountains, the aqua blue water of Naknek lake, the orientation of the sunrise, the diversity of wildlife, and yes, of course the amazing congregations of brown bears. Access to Brooks lodge is made via commercial airplane to King Salmon and then a small float plane ride from there to Brooks lodge, situated on the shores of Naknek Lake. Of increasing popularity is a day trip directly to Brooks from the Anchorage or Homer region. While this might be a great quick-chance to see the bears, you miss the good light of early morning and late evening. So I prefer to go for a stretch of time, in order to take some to time to get familiarized with the animals and their behavior, and sample the diversity of weather. The campground is a cheap option, but the spots go quick during prime summer time salmon runs, which of course, bring the bears.

Prince William Sound

The long fjords choked in lush green hillsides are fantastic in this sheltered waterway of southcentral Alaska. Glaciers are thick and active, dumping huge icebergs into the sea. The weather can be wet, but not as severe as southeast Alaska. Its coastal landscapes and wildflower meadows are amazing. The bird life, marine wildlife, and the interface of human participation through kayaking and/or maritime industry make it intriguing. It’s growing in popularity and number of visitors, in a large part, due to the road access available to public vehicles through the tunnel from Portage to Whittier. The sound can also be accessed from Valdez or Cordova, on the northern and eastern shores respectively. The Spring birding festival, held in May in Cordova, is a fascinating and at times, mindblowing experience. Especially if you time your visit to see the hundreds of thousands of shorebirds that migrate through.

Flocks of shorebirds, dominated by Western sandpipers flock to the shores of Hartney Bay, Copper River Delta, Prince William Sound, Alaska, to refuel during their migration to summer

The Brooks Range

This is a massive region. The great continental divide in northern Alaska that separates the interior from the arctic north slope. It is extreme, austere, beautiful and rugged. Far less populated than the other areas mentioned above, it is equally more difficult to access. But the landscapes fascinate me, the rugged mountains, the infusion of light in the summer (and mosquitoes!!). I hope to do more work in this area over the next few years. There is some access directly from the Dalton Highway, should you choose to hike. Or you can fly into a number of areas for extended hiking or river travel. Coyote Air Service based in Coldfoot is a very reliable air taxi service. The pilot Dirk and his wife Danielle, know the area extremely well: www.flycoyote.com

Denali National Park

While I often go to Denali Park with mixed feelings—there are soooooo many people to contend with along the road corridor—it does remain a very productive and beautiful place to photograph. The road moves through four different mountain passes, which parallel rivers with grand vistas–all in just 90 miles! I know of no other road system in the state with this diversity in such a short distance. The wildlife is abundant, relatively speaking, and diverse as well. It is also one of the few places to effectively and safely photograph interior grizzly bears—presuming one has a professional photographer’s permit which allows the luxury of traveling the park road in your own vehicle. This permit system has been on a gradual phasing out plan over the last 10 years. Getting the specific dates is very difficult since only a few vehicles a day are permitted. However, in 2009 I used my bicycle to travel around and photograph, based from the Wonder Lake campground within the park. It is not the easiest way, but its great exercise, and while the shuttle buses travel often and provide a good service, I prefer to be mobile on my own.

The versatility of zoom lenses is so appealing that I use prime lenses less often these days. However, they are notorious for lens flare and controlling that can be difficult. On this trip, I did bring a 24mm prime just for the purpose of daybreak landscapes which include the sun. Where was that lens on this fine morning? Back in camp, I forgot to bring it, since I was traveling light.

This was a very complicated photo for a number of reasons. Not a small issue was the temperature variations so near freezing and high humidity of morning fog. This caused my lens to fog over. And, every time I would put my eye up to the camera the view finder would fog up also. To complicate all this, I could not see my exposure values because I was blinded by shooting directly into the sun. In retrospect, this would have been a worthy time to experiment with the live view feature of the 1Ds (that is, you view the scene on the monitor on the back of the camera like most little digicams offer). I expected all sorts of unwanted lens flare but the position of the sun somewhat near the center of the frame helped to reduce that, and the flare that did show up almost creates a sense of motion.

The brown bears that inhabit the Brooks river in Katmai National Park share temporary population densities far beyond their preference. They abide together in relative peace due to the extremely abundant food supply of salmon, which draws them in the first place. There is some serious contending for dominance, fishing grounds, and micro territory, but most fighting is only play.

I thought the expression captured in this image was humorous, and worthy of a host of captions to satisfy the unquenchable anthropomorphic twist that we humans bring to the animal kingdom.