In the Field

Mother and Daughter - Pure Affection. Great Bear Rainforest (northern BC coast), Canada. October 4, 2007.

This is a shot of an adult female grizzly frolicking with her two and half year old cub in shallow water. We've seen this pair of bears over three consecutive autumns and have noticed that these two seem particularly closely bonded. They're absolutely beautiful bears and spend a great deal of time in extremely close contact. In this shot the cub is the bear on the right side of the image.

I found capturing these two bears in the way I wanted to be quite a challenge from a compositional perspective. I did find the gulls in the background distracting, so I wanted to minimize their impact. And, I wanted to keep what I considered the locus of attention in this image (the cub's mouth) off the horizontal centre of the image...so I used the good ol' rule of thirds to position the cub's mouth. I'm normally not fond of images that have both out-of-focus foregrounds and backgrounds, but I knew I had little choice with this scene, especially if I wanted to minimize the impact of the gulls. So I chose an aperture that would gently blend the out-of-focus and in-focus zones of the foreground yet still throw the gulls completely out-of-focus.

Behind the Camera

Mother and Daughter - Pure Affection. Great Bear Rainforest (northern BC coast), Canada. October 4, 2007.

Digital Capture; Uncompressed RAW (NEF) format; ISO 200.

Nikon D2Xs with Nikon 200-400 mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S VR lens @ 400 mm (600 mm equivalent with digital conversion factor) "balanced" on pontoon of moving Zodiac inflatable boat. VR turned to "On" and in "Active" mode.

1/400s @ f6.3; -0.33 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Mother and Daughter - Pure Affection. Great Bear Rainforest (northern BC coast), Canada. October 4, 2007.

RAW Conversion to 16-bit TIFF, including first-pass sharpening and exposure compensation using Phase One's C1 Pro. Multiple RAW conversions (2 at different exposure settings) in this case to reduce brightness of the gulls in the background.

Further digital correction on 16-bit TIFF file using Adobe's Photoshop CS3 and LightZone 3. Minor tonal adjustments performed in LightZone (using the ToneMapper/Relight tool). Photoshop adjustments included compositing and masking of two exposure versions (primarily to reduce the glare and brightness of the gulls in the background), selective saturation enhancement and selective sharpening for web output.

Conservation

Mother and Daughter - Pure Affection. Great Bear Rainforest (northern BC coast), Canada. October 4, 2007.

Ten percent of the revenue generated by this image will be donated to Raincoast.

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.

The Raincoast Conservation Society (and Foundation) is an effective and efficient organization that has been fighting for protection of this unique habitat. If you are looking for a meaningful way to contribute to the conservation of this amazing ecosystem, Raincoast will provide maximal "bang" for your conservation dollars.

For more information on the status of Grizzly Bears in Canada, go to: http://www.speciesatrisk.gc.ca and search under "Grizzly Bears".

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