Category Archives: Katmai National Park

Katmai National Park, Brooks Falls, Brooks Lake, Brooks River, Naknek Lake.

Do you practice?

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Grizzly bear, from behind.

A grizzly bear, rear view, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

As often as I’ve run across discussions about art and photography, I’ve never really heard anyone ask this question. Most artists, painters, writers, musicians, sculptors, dancers, etc, practice, routinely. But how much practice do you, as a photographer, actually do?

I don’t mean “time in the field shooting”. I mean time in the wood shed, practicing, honing your chops? I mean sitting working on a particular technique, idea, composition, theoretical study, etc. Continue reading →

Man-eater bears and idiotic rantings of a lunatic

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Grizzly bear, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

Large male (boar) brown bear walking up a salmon stream in early morning light, fall. (Grizzly bear, Ursus arctos). Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Scroll down to see larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Just to post something for while I’m out of town – a brown bear photo from the grizzlies in the Fall photo tour. Edit: Well, I had initially posted this ahead of schedule, planning on being out of town this week. However, 7″ of snow and more on the way put paid to my motivation to drive through the Chugach Mountains to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, so I’m still in town. Maybe next week I’ll get gone.

On to things that matter.

The inspiration behind this post is this rather unfortunate piece. An excerpt:

Conservative preacher Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association writes “One human being is worth more than an infinite number of grizzly bears. Another way to put it is that there is no number of live grizzlies worth one dead human being.”

I wonder if he feels the same way about, say, cigarettes, or motor vehicles. Even something as commonplace as fast food diets are responsible for far more human ill health than any grizzly bear (or grizzly bear population) ever has been. When he cries for their riddance, he’ll have some integrity.

He goes on (and on); “If it’s a choice between grizzlies and humans, the grizzlies have to go. And it’s time.”

More ignorance. It’s already BEEN time, Mr Fischer. Grizzly bears were virtually wiped out, via human hands, from the vast majority of their former range years ago. Lots of years ago. Continue reading →

Brown bear fishing

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Brown bear chasing salmon, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

A female brown bear (grizzly bear, Ursus arctos) chases Sockeye Salmon up Brooks River. Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. To view a larger version of the image, please click on the photo above.

Hey Folks,

This is a sow grizzly bear, or brown bear as they’re often (and correctly) called. She had 4 cubs, and worked hard (I mean, REALLY hard) to feed them all. Whenever I saw her fishing, she was 100%.

Most other adult bears rarely race around chasing salmon; they tend to walk up and down the river, either in the water or along the banks, and look for an easier dinner. Conserving energy is the name of their game.

This sow, with 4 extra hungry mouths to feed, was constantly running and racing through the water, chasing fish every which way. And if she saw another, smaller bear catch a fish nearby, she’d race after that bear, too, trying to force it to drop it’s catch. Rarely did that method work for her, but she never quit trying. Continue reading →

New Grizzly Bear Images Posted

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2 young grizzly bears fighting in a salmon stream. Rarely do real vicious fights break out, but when they, these well-armed opponents can do some serious damage to one another. Grizzy bears, or coastal brown bears (Ursus arctos), playfight in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

How ’bout that for a left hook! 2 young grizzly bears fighting in a salmon stream. Rarely do real vicious fights break out, but when they, these well-armed opponents can do some serious damage to one another. Grizzy bears, or coastal brown bears (Ursus arctos), playfight in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click the image above t view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

I’ve finally added some new grizzly bear images to my website – after way too much time. I’ve just added nearly 250 new grizzly bear images from my trips to Katmai in 2009 and 2010. Check them out, starting at row 6, image 09_SEP0345.jpg; some of the images have appeared on the blog in the past, but many of them have not; especially those whose file names start with 10_JUL …  those photos are from this most recent trip.

So, how about this particular photo? We were shooting 2 other bears when I saw this scuffle start to erupt behind us. Time to move and move fast, these little eruptions (usually) don’t last too long. So we shouldered the tripods and heavy gear, and moved quickly through the long marshy grass to be in position to shoot this ‘fight’.

Knowing what might happen is a big help when you’re photographing wild animals. It can make all the difference between being ready for something awesome, and completely missing it. (See my recent blog post on Expeditions Alaska about how often we miss).

We saw these 2 young bears playfight several times during the 2 weeks I was down there.

Continue reading →

Grizzly Bear and Fall Colors

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Grizzly bear and fall color, standing in warm afternoon light on the edge of a salmon stream. Ursus arctos, brown bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Grizzly bear and fall color, standing in warm afternoon light on the edge of a salmon stream. Ursus arctos, brown bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click the image to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

As I mentioned in a post a few days back, I am pretty excited about some of the grizzly bear photos I took on this most recent trip to Katmai National Park. Over the years I’ve spent so many weeks there, shooting and re-shooting photos of grizzly bears, that it can be difficult to really bring home some new images. This photo is one I was super happy with.

I took, of course, countless images of bears eating salmon, chasing salmon, catching salmon, standing around, sitting down, sleeping, fighting, playing, etc. But what I really wanted to capture was some dramatic images in dynamic weather or dynamic lighting situations. We were fortunate to have an abundance of both, Continue reading →

Grizzly bear photo

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Grizzly bear adult, fall, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

A grizzly bear (brown bear, Ursus arctos), stands on the edge of a salmon stream in Katmai National Park and Preserve. Grizzly bears can range in color from dark brown and black, as this one is, to a blond, almost white color. Fall foliage, Grizzly bear, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Please click on the image to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo from the first morning out on my recent trip to Katmai. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and I was able to get out and shoot before returning to camp to meet the folks coming out for the first week’s photo tour. I’d also walked and photographed the river the previous evening, and it gave me a great opportunity to scout around a bit and get a head’s up on things like the river level (which fluctuates greatly year to year, even week to week), which bears were hanging where, where the best fall colors were, etc, etc.

The bear population this year was even higher than last year, with over 70 bears in the area. I recognized many from previous trips I’ve made here, but this beautiful dark bear was one I hadn’t seen before. Continue reading →

Grizzly bear cubs photo

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4 grizzly bear (brown bears, Ursus arctos) in the forest of Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

4 grizzly bear (brown bears, Ursus arctos) in the forest of Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Welcome back to the land of the Great Bear!

This year’s grizzly bear photo tours were absolutely awesome. We had cubs, cubs and more cubs. Big bears, little bears, fat bears, pretty fat bears, REALLY fat bears, and Rush Limbaugh-fat bears.; we’re talking, R-E-A-L-L-YYY fat bears. Dark bears, blond bears, etc, etc – all of them a real treat to photograph. There were well over 70 bears in the area, so it was a simply incredible experience.

I’ve not yet edited hardly any of the shots from the past 2 weeks, but I’m pretty excited about some of the photos I took. Continue reading →

Internet Radio Interview

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Male grizzly bear, brown bear photo, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

Male grizzly bear, brown bear photo, (Ursus arctos) Katmai National Park, Alaska. Please click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Just a quick note here to say if you can, check out this online radio interview (GONE) Tuesday, May 4, 2010, at 9pm EST. I’ll be talking with photographers Greg Downing and E.J. Peiker, of Naturescapes.net, and  host Dave Warner, from Lensflarelive. It should be a lot of fun to do, and hopefully interesting and useful as well. I know I’m excited about it, Greg and EJ are great photographers whom I’ve admired for a long time, and it’ll be nice to talk with them.

Well be talking about wilderness photography, backpacking and hiking and photographing, as well as some environmental/conservation topics that might be relevant to nature photography. Greg also had the idea of present a few images online and we can discuss those and present a little more context about the work. I’m not really sure all of what we’ll talk about yet, but the show is open to call in, and it’d be great to hear from you on air. Hopefully the conversation will be interesting.

The broadcast can be heard live here. If you miss the show, it will be edited and available as a podcast soon after – I’ll add a link to this post when that becomes available.

I hope you enjoy the show,

Cheers

Carl

The Great Bear

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Grizzly bear sow photo, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

A large adult grizzly bear sow (female) walks along the edge of Naknek Lake, fall coors behind her, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Please click on the image to view a larger version on the photo.

Hey Folks,

A grizzly bear photo from my trip to Katmai National Park and Preserve last fall. This grizzly old sow is one of the larger females I’ve seen …. most folks think she’s a boar. It’s a real treat to be able to return to a place like Katmai and see the same individual animals I’ve seen and photographed before. I’m hoping this big bear has some young cubs when I return there in September this year.

‘The Great Bear’ is just one of the names commonly given to the grizzly bear by Native Americans. A closeup look at this sow suggests why. She’s awesome.

Cheers

Carl

Brown bear, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

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Grizzly bear walking in a salmon River, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

A young brown bear (Ursus arctos) walks through a stream hunting for spawning Sockeye Salmon. Grizzly bear, or coastal brown bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click the image for a larger version of the photo.

Hey folks

5-6 more weeks and the bears are running around the woods again!!!

I’ll be in the woods for the coming week, but I thought I’d post a brown bear photo, and schedule a couple of other blog posts for while I’m gone.

Catching this young blonde colored brown bear in some nice light was quite a treat. That’s the benefit of spending time in the field. Most wildlife photography, it seems, is done in places where the subject is pretty much a given; places like Homer for bald eagles, Yellowstone for elk, Churchill for polar bears, and Katmai National Park and Preserve for grizzly bears, or brown bears. So what makes the differernce? Light. Continue reading →