In the Field

A Spirited Sentinel. Northern BC Coast (Great Bear Rainforest), BC. September 29, 2009.

The rare all-white specimens of black bears found on the northern BC coast are known as Spirit Bears owing to their significance in the culture of the local natives. The predominant native legend about the Spirit Bear is that "the Creator" produced the Spirit Bear to remind its people of the previous hardship of living in all the snow and ice of the last ice age (and presumably to also remind them of how much better things are in the current interglacial period). Other legends stress the role of the bear as a sentinel guarding the forest.

I was lucky enough to capture this shot of a Spirit Bear doing its darnedest to promote the legend of Spirit Bear as a sentinel - it was obvious which legend THIS bear favoured! I shot this image quite early one morning in very low light conditions. To be perfectly honest, I converted this image to Black & White (B&W) primarily because with the low light conditions the colour simply wasn't very inspiring - which nicely leads into another topic...

What type of images lend themselves to B&W conversion? I make no claim to be an expert in B&W images, tho' I have spent hours perusing thousands of B&W images from some famous B&W photographers including, of course, Ansel Adams and John Sexton. Images that normally rank high for me as B&W conversion candidates are those which cover a wide tonal range (including "real" black and "real" white in them - and lots of tones in-between) and, of course, those with less than inspiring colour (tho' it has to be acknowledged that some beautiful and vibrant colour images often make beautiful B&W images as well). In my case, if an image looks very good in colour I normally don't think to convert it to B&W (which may well be a fault of mine). Anyway - the moment I looked at the colour version (view colour version here) of this image I thought "wow - that would look great in B&W". Not only did this image cover a wide tonal range, but the bear's coat really had a lot of white-on-white detail (which, of course, translates to multiple tones of gray after conversion to B&W). And, as previously mentioned, the colour in the original image was anything but inspiring!

In terms of making B&W conversions on the computer, I often use both Photoshop and Light Craft's LightZone. Up until Photoshop CS3 came out, the preferred way of making B&W conversions was to use the "Channel Mixer". With Photoshop CS3 the "Black & White" image adjustment dialog box made its appearance and most users (including me) migrated to this new tool. Once I make the initial B&W conversion I often then "explore" the tonality of the image using LightZone - which has an interface (and tools to match) that are based off a metaphor of Ansel Adams "Zone System" of photography. In this image I used LightZone to make small tweaks to the tones on the bear itself, including playing with shadow detail on the legs and the left cheek of the bear (right side of the image).

This image was captured during my annual "Spirit Bears and the Great Bear Rainforest" Instructional Photo Tour in the autumn of 2009. If you're interested in joining me on one of my photo tours into the Great Bear Rainforest, check out the details on my "Seminars and Workshops" page. My Instructional Photo Tours into the Great Bear Rainforest are run in conjunction with Ocean Light II Adventures - they offer a number of amazing adventure tours (including top-notch bear-viewing tours as well as tours of exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands) and I highly recommend them!

Behind the Camera

A Spirited Sentinel. Northern BC Coast (Great Bear Rainforest), BC. September 29, 2009.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) 14-bit format; ISO 1600.

Nikon D700 with Nikkor 600 mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S VR lens - supported on Gitzo 1348 carbon fibre tripod with Wimberley head. VR on and set to "Tripod" mode.

1/100s @ f6.3; -0.3 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting of camera.

At the Computer

A Spirited Sentinel. Northern BC Coast (Great Bear Rainforest), BC. September 29, 2009.

RAW Conversion to 16-bit TIFF, including first-pass/capture sharpening using Phase One's Capture One Pro 4.8. Three RAW conversions at different exposure settings. Exposure settings of -0.25 stops (for background) through to +0.75 stops (on various portions of the bear).

Further digital corrections on 16-bit TIFF file using Adobe's Photoshop CS4. Photoshop adjustments included compositing and masking of 3 exposure versions and selective desaturation of the body of the bear (to remove blue colour cast). B&W conversion performed using Photoshop's "Black & White" image adjustment tool. Final tone tweaking performed using Light Crafts LightZone.

Conservation

A Spirited Sentinel. Northern BC Coast (Great Bear Rainforest), BC. September 29, 2009.

Ten percent of the revenue generated by this image will be donated to Pacific Wild*

Species Status in Canada**: Not currently listed as Threatened or Endangered.

The "Spirit" Bear is a rare genetically-based colour variant of the common Black Bear (Ursus americana). It has been estimated that less than 300 Spirit Bears exist today. Because the Black Bear is not considered under threat as a species, the Spirit Bear suffers from having the same conservation designation (it should be acknowledged that in British Columbia - the jurisdiction of greatest Spirit Bear abundance - hunting of these white-coated bears is not permitted). For reasons that are not fully understood, the Spirit Bear occurs with greater frequency in a relatively small geographic area within The Great Bear Rainforest of the central and northern coast of British Columbia. In this area 10 to 30% of the bears possess white coats. Many of the black-coloured Black Bears in this region carry the gene for white coats, so allowing hunting of ANY Black Bears in this region can reduce the frequency of the gene for white coats. Thus, to protect the Spirit Bear, it is necessary to prohibit the hunting of ALL Black Bears in this region. And, very unfortunately, the globally unique ecosystem that contains the Spirit Bear is under development pressure, especially from the forestry industry. If this unique environment is altered, we may lose the wonderful genetic anomaly known as the Spirit Bear forever.

*Pacific Wild is a non-profit conservation organization that is committed to:

1. Defending wildlife and their habitat on CanadaÕs Pacific coast by developing and implementing solution-based conservation strategies. Pacific Wild supports innovative research, public education, community outreach and awareness to achieve the goal of lasting environmental protection in the lands and waters of the Great Bear Rainforest.

2. Working with a diverse array of communities, First Nations, groups and individuals to ensure that biodiversity protection is at the forefront of land and marine use decisions.

3. Mobilizing a concerned global citizenry to achieve large-scale wildlife protection.

Natural Art Images supports the efforts of Pacific Wild and encourages you to do the same.

**as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada