Category Archives: Wildlife

Wildlife Photos. Notes and thoughts related to wildlife photography.

Polar bears in black and white

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A black and white rendition of this young polar bear approaching the camera. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.
A black and white rendition of this young polar bear approaching the camera. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Sometimes I wonder if anyone’s still here.

These days, when I do blog, it’s mostly over at Expeditions Alaska. I definitely recommend you check it out over there, if you’re interested, and click on the “Get It By Email” link to stay connected and updated with all the goings on.

I simply found keeping a couple blogs going not worth the time. Maybe I’ll post here from time to time when I get bored, LOL.

Anyway, here’s a polar bear photo from this past fall. We spent a couple weeks in the arctic, again, and had some great photography opportunities with the bears. Never ceases to amaze me how fascinating it is to observe and photograph these incredible creatures. I’ve never really found another animal quite like the polar bear.

I converted this photo to black and whit to see how ti might come out and was pleasantly pleased with the results. What do you think?

Cheers
Carl

Free Polar Bear eBook

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Hey Folks,

Here’s a free ebook, available only to subscribers of my Expeditions Alaska newsletter. And, even better, here a bunch of absurdly great reasons why you want this ebook.

  1. It’s free
  2. It’s a great eBook
  3. Over 80 polar bear photos
  4. My newsletter is awesome
  5. Polar bears are super cool, and
  6. Nobody should need more than 5 reasons for this eBook.

So what is it? It’s a collection of photos of polar bears. Over 80 of them. I’ve written a piece or two about the bears as well. I think it’s a pretty cool little project. Download a copy and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your review of it.

Just click on the image below.

Polar Bear photo ebook by Carl Donohue and Expeditions Alaska

Thanks so much,

Cheers

Carl

Alaska Polar Bear Video

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Hey Folks,

I thought I’d share this video on my site here. I wrote the tune, a number of years ago, and recorded it with some friends in Atlanta, GA, when I lived there. Great musicians all of them, and it was a treat to record with them. I played the guitar parts.

The video and stills I shot in 2013 on my Alaska Polar Bear Photo Tour in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. One or 2 of the clips were shot by clients on the trip, and thanks go to Sue P and Munir K for their permission to use their clips. See my collection of stock polar bear photos here.

Cheers

Carl

Polar bear photo and sunrises

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A young polar bear on the prowl, silhouetted at sunrise, on the frozen ground of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Alaska. Polar bear, Ursus maritimus, Alaska.
A young polar bear on the prowl, silhouetted against a colorful sunrise, on the frozen ground of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Alaska. Polar bear, Ursus maritimus, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Everyone loves a great sunrise or sunset, right? And everyone loves polar bears; seriously, does anyone NOT love polar bears? So who loves the 2 together?

We set out this morning with high hopes, clear skies and the beginning of color on the horizon. Everyone hoped for a nice sky and some polar bear activity. Hoping, and getting are two different things.

So how does it play out? The sunrise turned out to be, in a word, spectacular. The morning itself, frustrating.

We found some polar bears relatively soon, but they weren’t really in a great location. On top of that, they were asleep. certainly, polar bears are so photogenic that even asleep, they make a great subject. But they were sleeping just below a short embankment, with the colorful sky above and beyond and so we couldn’t find a way to really make it work. One option might have been to shoot multiple exposures, steadily, and then blend the 2 together to properly capture detail in the foreground and the background. I shot a couple of images like this, but even as I was photographing, I knew it wasn’t really happening. OK stuff, but nothing grand.

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A Polar Bear and the Brooks range in the background, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, Alaska.

Polar bear image and the Brooks Mountains Range

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A Polar Bear and the Brooks range in the background, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, Alaska.
A Polar Bear and the Brooks mountains range in the background, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Here’s an image from my recent trip to the arctic to photograph polar bears. The light was great, and the landscape just swept away behind him. The more I shoot, the more these kinds of images seem to ring home for me.

There are a lot of places that are popular for polar bear photography nowadays, but few where you can grab a polar bear image with a massive mountain range in the background; and the infamous ANWR Section 1002 coastal plain in the foreground.

Polar Bear, Ursus maritimus, at sunrise, on Section 1002 of the ANWR coastal plain, and the Brooks Mountains Range in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

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Brown bear silhouette

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Silhouetted brown bear at sunrise, Katmai National Park, Alaska.
Silhouetted brown bear at sunrise, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

Timing is everything; especially for photography. Being in the “right place” at the “right time” is critical to making the “right photos”. Especially when photographing brown bears. So how, exactly, do we go about making that happen?

A million dollar question, I think.

One comment that we read and hear frequently, and I completely agree with, deals with knowing your subject. Knowing the behavior of an animal, for example, can help us predict where it might move to, what it may do, and so on. There’s no question, in my opinion anyway, that the better you know your subject, the better the photo opportunities you’ll have.

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Brown bear, Katmai National Park, Alaska

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A brown bear (Ursus arctos) sits in long green sedge grass. The low tide provides great habitat for coastal brown bears in spring and summer, in places like Kukak Bay, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

A brown bear (Ursus arctos) sits in long green sedge grass. The low tide provides great habitat for coastal brown bears in spring and summer, in places like Kukak Bay, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Getting ready to leave soon for another trip to Katmai National Park, after a busy summer hiking and backpacking. I’m excited, as always to head to Katmai and photograph the great coastal brown bears down there.

This photo was taken in June on the Coastal Brown Bear Photo Tour. A beautiful young brown bear, maybe 4 or 5 years old, in nice, soft light.

This fall we have 2 weeks of trips, with a few returning guests, as well as a number of people coming out for their first Alaska trip. After that, I have a week scheduled to photograph in the Arctic, then the summer/fall season will be over for me, and it’ll be time to catch up on website updates, etc, and planning for 2013. The aurora borealis photo tours have generated/are generating a great deal of interest, so that should be a fun time in the spring.

Oh, that and some fun skiing/snowboarding of course.

Cheers

Carl

Brown bear feeding on salmon

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Brown bear eating salmon, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Brown bear eating a Sockeye Salmon. Brown bears love to eat the fat rich skin first, consuming much needed calories for their own winter hibernation. The brown bear here has it’s tongue poking out. Brown bear, Ursus arctos, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Just back from 2 weeks of photography brown bears here in Alaska, and I hardly have time to unpack before I’m heading out on my next trip, but I wanted to post something from the bear photo tour before leaving.

This year I wanted to concentrate on some different kinds of images than I normally shoot, so I shot a lot less, and threw out even more than usual; but I did come away with some photos, I think, that I’ll be happy with. I still haven’t looked over all of them yet, but I know I made at least a couple I will like. Once I get down to editing I’ll try to post a few.

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Wildlife Photos: The American Porcupine of Wrangell-St. Elias

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American Porcupine, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
An American Porcupine, Erethizon dorsatum, in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Porcupine central near the Nizina Glacier

It’s always a treat to photograph a species I’ve never photographed before (or at least made any “keepers” of). Our recent trip up near the Nizina Glacier, in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve seemed to be porcupine central. I think I saw 3 in the first 6 hours of the trip. That’s pretty cool, considering I often go the entire summer season without seeing any porcupines at all.

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Are Grizzly Bears Really Man-Eaters? Debunking the Shoot-on-Sight Narrative

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Male brown bear, Katmai National Park, Alaska.
A 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.

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.

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