Tag Archives: Brown bears

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. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Just back from 2 weeks shooting 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 at lease 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. Continue reading →

Grizzly bear cubs, Katmai National Park, Alaska

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Grizzly bear cubs, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

3 young grizzly bear cubs wait by a river, fall colors in the forest. Grizzly bears, or brown bears, (Ursus arctos). Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

By now, all going according to plan, I should be almost getting back from the Katmai National Park Grizzly Bear Photo Tour; here’s an image from last year’s tour, just in case we don’t have much luck this fall. 3 gorgeous young cubs slipping down to water’s edge for a look around, before slinking back to the forest.

Next photo should be from 2011. See ya soon.

Cheers

Carl

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 →

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

Grizzly Bear Photo – Ursus arctos

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A grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) headshot, Katmai National park and Preserve, Alaska.

A grizzly bear (Ursus arctos), close and personal, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Click the image for larger version.

Hey Folks,

In honor of the recent decision (last week) by Judge Molloy of Montana to continue to have the grizzly bears listed under the Endangered Species Act (in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem), here’s a grizzly bear photo, from my recent trip to Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. In September the Court ruling was for the US Fish and Wildlife Service to relist the bears, but the F&WS requested the judge to reconsider. He reconsidered, and turned down their appeal, so the bears remain, for now, on the ESA. I’ll write a lengthy post about it later; for now I’m going to bed.

I think September was a good month for the bears – Continue reading →

Grizzly Bear at Sunset and Grizzly Bear Fall Photo Tour

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A Grizzly bear rests at Sunset

Hey Folks,

NB: I’ve now added this trip to the main section of guiding website, Expeditions Alaska. By all means, browse this page, but please also visit the trip page here.

I’m excited to announce a Grizzly Bears in the Fall photo Tour for 2010. Details are posted on my Expeditions Alaska website but I’ll copy it here as well:

This coming year, 2010, I’m running a new phototour to Katmai National Park and Preserve; we’ll be basecamping in remote southwest Alaska, photographing grizzly bears, dawn til dusk, for a week. Katmai National Park is home to some of the largest grizzly bears (or “brown bears” as they’re often called in that region) in the world. Feeding largely on salmon from some of the richest salmon runs in Alaska, the bears are magnificent creatures and there’s no better time to photograph them than in the fall. This trip offers an unsurpassed opportunity to photograph wild grizzly bears in a remote and brilliantly wild setting and promises some simply incredible photographic possibilities.

Schedule:

– Trip #1: Sept 19-25, 2010.

– Trip #2: Sept 26-Oct 2, 2010

Continue reading →

Grizzly bear and fall color

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A grizzly bear stands poised beside Brooks River, vibrant fall colors in the background, as he fishes for Sockeye Salmon. Katmai National park and Preserve, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

As I said in a recent post, on my recent trip to Katmai National Park and Preserve I really hoped to make some images that featured not only the great grizzly bears, but also the awesome fall colors of the boreal forest . The Black Cottonwoods of the area provide the perfect background for photographing grizzly bears, but rarely do photographers seem to combine the 2. Most folks come up to Alaska and shoot the bears in the summer, and I think they’re missing out. The classic shot of a grizzly bear fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls is nice, and only generally possible mid-summer, of course, but there are a lot of other opportunities around in the fall that can be equally exciting. Great fall colors make stunning backdrops, and can really bring a vibrancy to the image. Stepping back, zooming out, and letting the scene dictate the photos is often the key.

In this photo I enjoy the sense of relationship between subject and environment – the dichotomy is largely only a function of our thought processing. The idea that the “environment” is something other than everything is a little peculiar; the subject IS the environment, as equally as the environment is the subject. There is really no difference between the bear and his habitat. Continue reading →

Nikon Capture NX2 and Adobe CS4.

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A grizzly bear walking towards the camera, Katmai national park, Alaska.

Photo above extracted via Nikon Capture NX2.2.2 Continue reading →