Bold. Bashful. Beautiful

Bold. Bashful. Beautiful.

My 2013 "Grizzlies of the Khutzeymateen" photo tours are just over a month away, so I figured I better shake a leg and get the remaining images from last year's tour processed!

Like most wildlife photographers, I strive to capture images that stand out from the crowd. And like many wildlife photographers, I have made the choice to shoot only naturally-occurring (wild, free-ranging, non-baited) subjects. These last two sentences - the desire to capture attention-grabbing wildlife images but limiting myself to photographing only wild subjects, can make life challenging (to say the least). It's one reason I absolutely love shooting in the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary in northern British Columbia - the grizzlies of the Khutzeymateen are totally wild, but because they have not been abused by humans in decades, they go about ALL their daily activities in full view. It doesn't really bother me that the area is about as pristine as you can get, and is very tightly controlled (under 200 humans per year get in!).

Bears are a lot like humans (and most other animals) - individuals vary in personality, including in how calm they are around humans. One rule of thumb that tends to hold in the Khutzeymateen is that adult bears tend to be calmer around photographers than their cubs are, especially if the cubs haven't seen humans before. While this female was bold and assertive around other bears (and, at times appeared almost "proud"), she was amazingly accepting of us. Her cubs (she had two of them) were initially hyper-cautious around us - the first time we saw them they just high-tailed it. Within a few days they began calming down, but were always more bashful than Ma. To me this image absolutely (and accurately) portrays the personality of these particular bears - Ma is bold and proud, Junior is bashful, wary, but darned curious. And both are beautiful creatures.

I got lucky in this instance when the bears moved in front of a very dark "hole" in the forest - making them stand out strongly against the background. And then, when the pair of them struck this pose...well...once in a blue moon, eh?

Subject: Female Grizzly (Urus arctos) with shy cub
Location:Khutzeymateen Inlet, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D4
Lens: Nikkor 400mm f2.8 VRII lens - hand-held from floating zodiac. VR on and in "Normal" mode.
Exposure: 1/400s @ f5.6; ISO 720. No compensation compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.
Crop: Moderate - this is only 70% of full-frame

Like almost always, additional details about the image (including processing details and more about what shooting in the Khutzeymateen is like) is available here:

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

Comments and critiques welcomed - probably best to view the larger version prior to doing so!

Cheers...

Brad