In the Field

Bedtime Snack. Khutzeymateen Inlet (Great Bear Rainforest), BC. June 2, 2009.

If you ever visit the Khutzeymateen Inlet in northern British Columbia in late spring you'll quickly find that it's usually fairly easy to snap a photo of a grizzly eating grass. But...capturing an interesting or compelling image of a grizzly eating grass is far less easy. I consider this image - which was captured a few hours after sunset and not long before bedtime (if not for the grizzly, at least for me!) - one of my best efforts to date of a grizzly eating grass. And, while the image appears very simple, a fair amount of thought went into the creation of it...

I'm a firm believer that the human eye reacts strongly to difference. And, the difference can take several forms and still attract the eye - it can be difference in virtually any parameter important to vision, including brightness, sharpness/smoothness, colour, etc., and the human eye will still be attracted. To a photographer, one of the most controllable forms of visual difference is sharpness - through selective focus, thin depth of field, motion blurs with panning (to ensure the background is completely out-of-focus), and other ways a photographer can ensure that their subject virtually demands the attention of the viewer's eye. The fact that difference attracts the eye is an important rule for photographers to keep in mind...

A bear eating grass isn't really a compelling subject. But...if you take such a subject, combine it with some aspect of "visual difference", follow a few basic compositional guidelines, and add some strong eye contact, then you're left with an image of much, much higher interest. In this case I decided to concentrate on just one aspect of visual difference- an extreme difference in sharpness between the subject and the background - to make the subject stand out. To do so, I picked a lens that I know has great bokeh (i.e., produces incredibly smooth out-of-focus zones) and shot with the aperture almost fully open. Doing this left me with an extremely narrow depth-of-field where only the bear (and just those parts of the bear I wanted to emphasize) and a narrow hint of grass were in sharp focus. And, the smoothness of the out-of-focus zones makes the sharp zones look even sharper (a phenomenon I refer to as apparent sharpness).

What compositional guidelines did I use in this image? The first is my mantra and is summed up with the phrase "simplify and isolate." By this I mean it's almost always best to simplify your composition and isolate your subject (from its surroundings). It would be hard to imagine a simpler composition than this or one where the subject was more isolated from its surroundings.

In terms of positioning of the subject within the frame, I used another "classic" compositional guideline - the rule of thirds. If I had placed the subject dead-centre in the frame (as opposed to about 1/3 the way into the frame from the right) the resulting composition would have been far more static than what you see here.

While this image isn't what I'd call a "classic" grizzly shot, it is probably the best shot I've ever captured of a grizzly munching on grass. And now you know why!

This image was captured during my annual "Grizzlies of the Khutzeymateen" Instructional Photo Tour in the spring 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

Bedtime Snack. Khutzeymateen Inlet (Great Bear Rainforest), BC. June 2, 2009.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) 14-bit format; ISO 280.

Nikon D700 with Nikkor AFS 200 mm f/2 ED IF G VR lens - handheld. VR turned to "On" and in "Normal" mode.

1/250s @ f2.2; -0.33 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting of camera.

At the Computer

Bedtime Snack. Khutzeymateen Inlet (Great Bear Rainforest), BC. June 2, 2009.

RAW Conversion to 16-bit TIFF, including first-pass/capture sharpening using Phase One's Capture One Pro 4.8. Four RAW conversions at different exposure settings and at different white balance settings. 4 exposures settings ranging from -0.7 stops (for background and foreground) through to +0.8 stops (to assist in recovery of shadow detail and balance lighting on various parts of the bear). Two white balance settings: 5400 k (as shot) for fore- and background and 6400 k for bear.

Further digital corrections on 16-bit TIFF file using Adobe's Photoshop CS4. Adjustments included compositing and masking of 4 exposure/white balance versions, selective colour saturation and desaturation, selective light application of warming filter (to the bear only), minor shifting of subject positioning within frame using Content Aware Scaling, and selective sharpening for web output.

Conservation

Bedtime Snack. Khutzeymateen Inlet (Great Bear Rainforest), BC. June 2, 2009.

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

Species Status in Canada**: Special Concern (May 2002).

While Grizzly Bears (Ursus arctos) are not technically listed as "Endangered" in Canada, they have been extirpated from most of their historical range. Grizzly Bears are far more sensitive to intrusion/disturbance in their habitat than are Black Bears and are being increasingly forced into marginal habitat by human encroachment. The Great Bear Rainforest along the central and northern coast of British Columbia is one of the last strongholds of the Grizzly Bear in Canada, and even this population is coming under increasing pressure.

*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