This last June marked my second visit to the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska, a monstrous 23 million acre area on Alaska’s north slope. It was originally set aside by president Harding as an emergency oil supply for the US Navy.  The average person knows little about the region, and it is huge. Some consider it a large wasteland full of mosquitoes. Well, the mosquitoes love the place (at least for a month or two), but there is much more going on there. There are many stories I could tell about my recent trip in June, but it is time to move on to other subjects and I’ll leave behind this gallery for casual browsing. The photos were all taken in the Utukok river uplands region, which is referenced on a map on a previous post.

My blogging has been slim due to a 12 day river trip in the arctic, and now with time in the office I can play catch up on a few stories and photos worth sharing of my recent ventures….

Utukok Uplands, National Petroleum Reserve Alaska.

While treading the homeland of grizzly bears, a shrewd and methodical behavior is advised. This is all the more true if you are alone, as the statistics for human/bear encounters are considerably decreased when group size exceeds the solitary wanderer. For these reasons, and the fact that I like my life, made my senses keen to the heavily grizzly bear populated area of the Utukok uplands on my June photo trip.

I was fortunate to catch the tail end of the western arctic caribou migration, and watched a group of a few thousand animals pass through my camp.

On the following evening, I hiked about 7 miles west in search for the group, which I found grazing on the tundra slopes in the shadows of evening summer sunshine. But I was not the only creature looking for caribou. The bears and wolves are also keen on finding the animals, in particular the young calves, which were approximately one week old at the time. While watching the group from about 3/4 mile away, they appeared startled and began to run. With a closer look, I noticed two grizzly bears chasing them at the lower end of the valley. Good news and bad news. Good news because moving caribou are more interesting to photograph,  bad news because they were moving away from me and the presence of bears made me nervous. They ran quickly leaving the sow grizzly and her two year cub alone on the tundra.  I began running up to the ridge and after the caribou, with hopes of getting closer if they chose to crest the top. They moved quite some distance, across to the next valley, and while I have been training to run a portion of an autumn marathon in Fairbanks, I’m no match for caribou cruising the tundra. They finally slowed down and began grazing again and I was able to gain some distance on them, keeping myself out of sight by walking just on the opposite side of the ridge in which they were approaching. All of a sudden I saw an ear and heard the grunts of a cow and calf, and immediately crouched low on the ground. The herd was cresting the hill right in front of me. I froze while the first few animals crossed and stared at me, but continued walking. I started clicking frames off. The shots were nothing to compare with the experience-see below.

When they were about 30 feet away, one spooked, and the whole herd bolted, like herd animals do when one sounds the alarm. Back they went on the other side of the ridge, and ran off to the west. I stood up to photograph their departure. That’s when I realized why they suddenly decided to crest the hill. A lone grizzly bear was loping right at me, the only one left standing after a herd of caribou dashed away speedily. The bear probably thought about his good fortune of one injured one left behind. The bear was in the golden light of evening, and I was fraught with the duplicitous mind of oh sh#!, and that would be a great shot! I had two cameras around my neck, a full backpack, and hands quickly retrieving the pepper spray in the side pouch of my camera bag. The thing to do in a situation like this, besides wondering what your eulogy would be, is not to run–as if I had anywhere to go anyway, and hold the ground. The bear came to about 30 feet from me and stopped, turned broadside, drooled, and I took a few shots one handed with my pepper spray in the other hand.

I noticed it was a relatively young bear, thankfully–they just seem a little less threatening than the big old scarred ones. After a brief moment, the bear realized I was not on his dinner palate and ran off along the ridge. I was left standing in the golden arctic sunshine at 1:50 AM on summer solstice, overlooking the vast arctic domain in 360 degrees, saying to myself with a healthy dose of relief, “wow”. It seemed like a good time to head back to camp, which was in the opposite direction, and I photographed along the way, crawling in my sleeping bag about 5:00 AM, after sipping lightly on a special flask laying by my pillow.

The road that transects Denali National Park crosses 4 mountain passes and many river drainages. This is astonishing for a road that is only 90 miles long, and one of the reasons that majestic views are not lacking on that journey. And, this lends to photos of wildlife contextually placed in this wilderness mountain setting. I enjoy that aspect of the park, and the photo below shows that well. It gives a feel for the terrain in which these animals roam. Taken along the Toklat river, this brown bear moved quickly across the braided river, moving somewhere that its nose was dictating. A little snow remains on the center mountain, which was actually well covered just the day before from snowfall in early June. I’ve been snowed on in May, June, July, August, & September in Denali Park, and this varied and quickly changing weather is another reason that Alaska’s sub arctic mountain wilderness is an exciting and ever changing landscape in which to photograph.

Time to take a little bend in the road of still photography and explore some of the newly bundled features in today’s quickly evolving digital cameras-HD video.  Since the inclusion of HD video in the Canon 5D Mark II, I’ve enjoyed playing around with it a bit, with an emphasis on “playing”. It is less than a perfect device to use as a video camera, but it takes amazingly good quality clips. I must confess however, that video capture is somewhat addictive, and herein lies the problem and the tension between stills and video. Since I’m heavily vested in still imagery from a professional and business perspective, my foray in video has been something to play with only when I don’t feel I’m loosing out on a great still image.

Let me also mention that the video included here, although it captures some fun action, is by no means done to any technical perfection. Heavy winds, a large lens, super magnification, and serendipity all contributed their respective influence. On this trip I had in tow Canon’s new 7D, which also sports an HD video mode. Actually, I had the 5d mark II, the 7D and a 1Ds Mark III– each camera body housing different buttons with live view functions in different locations. This array of camera gear is not recommended for efficient and fast shooting. It is confusing to say the least to operate three cameras when quickly changing between them. And it complicates things further when a pair gloves steal the finesse between you and the tiny operation buttons on the camera. But I did want to experiment with the 7D and therefore welcomed it as yet another camera in the line up. I’m looking forward to the 1D Mark IV, which will put back in my hands two bodies with the exact same build, buttons and operations–at least really close anyway. Better yet would be the 1Ds Mark IV, and get rid of the “S” for studio. How about a 1Dw for “wildlife” full frame, 21MP, 8fps, great autofocus and video. That would do it for me. But that is embarking down another road–back to the bears…

At one point when the bears were quite some distance away, I put the 500mm with a 1.4x on the 7D and shot a few video scenes at 1120mm, in the pelting wind so common to Alaska’s arctic coast. A female polar bear with two cubs were engaging in all sorts of play on a small barrier island north of Barter Island, in the Beaufort Sea, on Alaska’s north shore. This polar bear spent a fair amount of time rolling around in the snow cleaning her fur. They are amazing to watch and great fun to photograph. Watching the video again makes me want to go back already.

A few comments about photographing white subjects in white environments; in particular the issue of exposure and post production adjustments in Lightroom 2.5. Let me first state that I’ve always utilized an expose-to-the-right shooting style (you can explore that concept on luminous-landscape if you are unfamiliar with it). To summarize that briefly, it is a method of maximizing the signal to noise ratio in a digital file. The result is an out-of-the-camera RAW file that tends to look washed out and overly bright, so it will need a little adjustment in post production software to look good. Shooting this way has the advantage of maintaining more detail in shadowy subjects, not necessary reflected in this particular frame. Exposing to the right may slightly reduce your shutter speed/aperture, and a judgment call is needed based on your accepted exposure setting minimums. Sometimes, if you are already at your high ISO maximum, a file slightly underexposed but shot at 1/500 sec., to stop motion is better than the proper exposure taken at 1/250 sec, which would have some motion blur. You would then boost the exposure in post production and sacrifice some potential grain for a sharpness. In this series of shots, some were a touch blurry from motion since i was only at 1/320 sec, I would have been better served by increasing the shutter speed slightly to 1/500 or 1/640 sec. Oh well, I squeaked by.

Back to exposing white subjects. I prefer to shoot in manual mode for the utmost control, but use other modes when appropriate. It is actually fairly easy to properly expose a subject like a polar in the snow on an overcast, flat-light day. Take a shot and look at your histogram. Since snow is white, or very near white, you should expect to see data on the far right of the histogram, which represents your white levels. If it is more in the middle, then your snow will look gray, and you will want to tweak your exposure to compensate for this. Compare the histograms above to see the difference. Pure white is all the way to the right.

To compensate for the expose-to-the-right settings which I used to capture this image, I used Lightroom and selectively brought the brightness down a bit using the brush and gradient tools to give a little more detail in the snow. The result is subtle, but presents the scene a little more accurate to what the eye sees. Compare the before and after files below.

This is another frame taken on a recent Arctic photo tour that I co-guide with Hugh Rose. We expanded to two trips this year, due to increased interest. This female polar bear was looking pretty healthy, and had been feeding on carcasses left over from the Autumn Bowhead whale hunt in the native village of Kaktovik.  The slushy ice along the shore depicts that freeze up is not far away. She will soon head out on the ice pack in search for seals.

In my observations and photography in nature, I consider the polar bear to be one of the most amazing animals, exhibiting tremendous adaptation which has made them fit for survival in a harsh climate. They are generally a solitary animal, with a tremendous range of up to 1000 miles. Much of their life on the sea ice is in darkness, or at least the sun-less days of winter, lit perhaps by moonlight. Photographing them in the wild, in Alaska, is possible in a few locations. However, many variables play their part in one’s attempt at successfully achieving this goal. In October, bears are anxiously waiting for the ice to form on the Beaufort Sea, and when this happens, they leave the shores and head for the frozen ocean to hunt for their favorite and fat-rich food supply of seal.

Low levels of light, unstable, moving platforms, wintry conditions, hand holding long lenses (to name a few challenges), made this photo encounter a multifaceted one. The temperature was in the 20′s, not real cold, but after a few hours holding the hand above the heart, touching metal in various forms, my fingers tend to loose sensitivity. While it is easily endurable, I cant change focal points as quickly as usual, and this becomes a problem since it forces composition to a focus point dot. In general, I find it difficult to both hand hold and manual focus the 500, so I’m linked to the auto-focus system. (On a side note, I tested Canon’s new 7D on this trip, and I did like the new autofocus features available on that camera. I’m still sold on the files generated by the 1Ds and the 5D however and I’ll talk about my thoughts on the 7D camera in a later post)

I took the frame hand held with the 500mm f/4 IS–a lens of incredible quality and versatility. ISO 800 was a common shooting setting–thanks to the beautiful files generated by Canon’s 1Ds Mark III. With any more movement, one really needs 1/500 or 1/640 of second, which then puts your aperture wide open. Additionally, when shooting at such a high ISO, one needs to make sure the exposure is accurate, since boosting it in post production can create noise and grain.

This female bear spent a considerable time rolling in the snow, cleaning her fur which had taken on a dark tone from the sand and dirt prior to the fresh snowfall. It was a great photo session with the bears, and everyone on our photo tour got impressive images. I’ll post a few more of the bears in following entries as they are a favorite subject to many.

Polar bears congregate along Alaska’s north coast when the scent of the bowhead whale carcasses show up from the autumn indigenous whale hunts. Barter Island, located just off the Alaska mainland, is bordered by the Beaufort Sea to the north. It is growing in popularity as a destination to view polar bears, an amazing experience indeed to see these animals in the wild. With the current state of the polar bear under much debate and concern regarding climate change, the bears are the subject of much study. Many of the bears have been darted from the air, collared with radio collars, ears tagged, painted with large black numbers on their fur, gums tatooed, and other sort of research marking tools that have taught the polar bears quite well to dislike helicopters. This young bear is quite curious and approached our small bus for a closer look. Heavy winds for the last few days, gusting to 50mph, have made both photography and bear traffic minimal.

This is shot is mostly luck mixed with a little bit of perseverance.  First of all the mountain often clouds over as the day progresses and if it does not, it tends to be very hazy by this time of day. It was noon when I shot the frame, and thanks to the amazing clarity of the day, and the polarizing filter which reduced the sheen on the vegetation, the image works. Earlier light would have been preferred, but I’ll take this as a starter.

Shots of wildlife–especially bears–in front of Denali are not easy to come by. I was returning to camp for a bit to eat when I thought I should explore the tundra a bit (more scouting for a location to shoot under better light) when I came across this bear incessantly feeding on blueberries. This time of year, the bears are in a state of hysterical eating called hyperphasia. The bear seldom looked up, and I happened to get only a few frames when it walked to a new location to find blueberries. Managing the tripod, tundra, bushes, polarizer, etc., made a bit of a frantic scene on my part, not wanting to miss this opportunity.  The bear was visible for 16 minutes before moving off into the alder bushes (which were ubiquitous in the area).

In late August the salmon streams of Prince William Sound are filled with pink salmon. To these streams comes a frequent visitor, hungry for abundant meals of fish-the black bear. I watched this bear fish in the stream for about an hour or so. It was obvious he was near satiation, since the only parts of the fish eaten were the belly section. My guess is that the bear was high grading the female salmon eggs. Its belly hung low, a sign of happy feeding. The photographic conditions were challenging. Largely due to the low lying clouds causing a very dark canopy. You will notice that 1/250 sec is marginal for freezing motion, but I was already at ISO 800 and shooting wide open at f/4 on the 500. If I had more light, I would have used a converter more often than I did. I got a handful of good shots but needed a bit more light, since many have a slight blur.

This was a classic scene where shooting in manual exposure mode was beneficial, since the dark bear and the bright water would send the light meter in great variation. I use manual, aperture and shutter priority exposure modes depending on the situation. There are definite pros and cons to both, and learning to switch quickly and know your dial operations is critical. It can get confusing when moving between different modes.