Hey Folks,
Just to wrap up the year for 2012, here’s a quick slideshow from the year – 30 photos from various trips. Good times and good memories. I hope you all enjoy the pictures. If you like, take a quick look at my “Year in Alaska” on video, over at Expeditions Alaska – some nice clips from the past 12 months; it’s pretty cool, if I must say so myself! 🙂
Thanks so much,
Cheers
Carl Continue reading
Silhouetted brown bear at sunrise, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of the photo.
Hey folks,
Timing is everything; especially for photography. Being in the “right place” at the “right time” is critical to making the “right photos”. 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. Continue reading
Grizzly bear gives me the once over, Katmai NP, Alaska. Click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.
Hey Folks,
Reading a recent post from someone on facebook reminded me of my start in stock photography, and I thought it might make a good subject for a blog post. How’d you make your start in selling stock photography? Every photographer wants, or once wanted, to be “published”. It’s the hallmark for aspiring photographers, I suppose.
I guess every photographer has their own story about how this happened for them. Here’s mine.
I received an email from a magazine editor in Europe requesting the use of this image, at left, for the cover of their magazine. They’d seen the image on the website, and wanted to license it. The email included the fee they pay for the image usage, and asked that I ftp the high-res file to them if that was acceptable. It was.
I dug the file (a tif file, scanned from a slide) from my external hard drive, saved as a high quality jpeg, and ftp’ed the file right away. I got a nice check and 2 copies of the magazine son after, with my photo sitting ever so proudly on the cover. My first ever sale, a cover photo for an international magazine. And it took my all of about 2 minutes to negotiate. “Wow; this is TOO easy”, I thought; “I’ll be rich before I’m a month older”. Continue reading
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 (Ursus arctos), at Hallo Bay, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the photo above to view a larger version of this photo.
Hey Folks,
Just returned from a week on the Katmai coast photographing brown bears. This was a new trip for me this year; I’d not been over to this specific location, or at this time of year, previously.
It was a grand trip; flying out of Kodiak, and spending a week on a boat along the coast, shooting bears in gorgeous soft summer light. My personal photography priority for the trip was bears in the landscape. I also wanted some cool “behavioral” photos, which included bears clamming at low tide, sparring with one another, and even mating. Cool stuff to shoot.
Shooting mid-summer in Alaska requires a great deal of flexibility; if the weather is clear and sunny, the best light (in this area) is at 9:30pm – 11pm, and 5:00am – 6:00am. So by the time we’d get back from a shoot, it might well be after midnight. Getting back up at 4:30am to shoot again is a rough gig. On the other hand, if the skies are overcast, we’d shift to a more routine schedule, and head out around 8am. Continue reading
A large male adult brown bear, or grizzly bear (Ursus arctos), stands and stares at the camera. Male brown bears may reach weights of over 1200lbs and easily stand 9′ tall. Brown bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.
Hey Folks,
One of my main goals last year, photographically, was to shoot more ‘bears in the landscape’ style shots; images such as this one were what I was really after. Of course, that doesn’t mean I would pass up an opportunity to fill the frame with a bear like this, either.
This kind of image is all about the bear; power, size and vitality. The bears in the landscape speak a little more about place. Fascinating subject, place.
I just got back from a trip to Denali National Park and Preserve, where I spent some time in a cabin in the woods, by a fire, trying to stay warm. The day we skied in to the park, the temperatures plummeted, from the 0 to – 5 degreeF range to minus 40 and minus 45. The experience of the Alaska backcountry at that kind of temperature is something else.
It was a  cool experience, hanging out with my friend, Erik DeLuca, music composer from Virginia, while he concentrated on doing some soundscape recordings and trying his best to experience a ‘sense of place’ in a landscape like this. We chatted a lot about what that means, what it does for us, and why it might be important. I commandeered Erik’s book, “Place: A Short Introduction“, (author: Tim Cresswell) and read over it during the long dark nights. It’s interesting stuff. Continue reading
Grizzly bear, Ursus arctos. A large adult male grizzly bear stands in dawn’s early light, shrouded in fog on a cool fall morning. Brown bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.
Hey Folks,
We were treated to some gorgeous soft light in the cool fall mornings on our recent grizzly bears photo tour. Fortunately for our group, no one had any troubles with lenses fogging up, which can wreak havoc on shooting early, cold mornings. The ethereal, moody experience of standing in the mist in near silence, watching the bears go about their morning, was really a special experience we all were grateful for. The photos were just the icing on the cake. And this bear? Ted, the coolest bear in the whole wide world. Ever. 🙂
I’ve shot this bear a number of years now, and it’s always exciting to see him on the river again. He’s a beautiful animal, and I’m lucky to have had so many great opportunities to see and photograph him.
Thanks Ted.
Cheers
Carl
Brown bear, Ursus arctos, and a wildlife photographer, walking along a road in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.
Hey Folks,
Just a fun photo to show you that this grizzly bear photography isn’t as easy as it looks. Here’s an experienced Alaskan wildlife photographer setting off trying to find a bear to photograph.
You might THINK it’s easy to find a 800lb brown bear, but such isn’t the case. Take a guide who knows what he’s doing with you so this photo isn’t you on your next photo trip. 🙂
Cheers
Carl