In the Field

Last Glance! Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), BC. July 19, 2009.

I've always found seals both fascinating and beautiful - and they have the most amazing eyes. So during a recent trip to the Queen Charlottes I was very pleased that we had a number of opportunities to see and photograph them. As anyone who's tried to photograph them knows, they can often be quite approachable (and will even often approach you) while in the water, but they normally don't like to be approached too closely when they're on land (presumably because they feel quite vulnerable when out of water). And, if you happen to stumble upon them unexpectedly when they're ashore, they will often give you a very quick glance and then slide away beneath the surf. Which is exactly what this seal did when we came around a group of rocks in our Zodiac at low tide - and this is the fleeting last glance we got before the seal disappeared into the ocean...

I faced a number of challenges in capturing this shot. One of the things I wanted to capture during this trip was a close-up shot of a seal's face shot from a very low level. The low-level part was easy - we did most of our shooting during this trip from the water while in a Zodiac, which pretty much guarantees that you'll be at low level! Getting close enough to a seal for a nearly full frame facial shot wasn't so easy, especially since our guide was adamant that he didn't want to "push" the seals off their haul-out rocks (intentionally OR inadvertently). We were cruising among rocks at low tide (with most of the folks in our Zodiac watching for exposed starfish and other aquatic invertebrates) so I knew it was possible we'd stumble upon a seal when we came around rocks. I also knew that I'd only have s second or two to get the shot, which meant that I had to be perpetually ready to shoot and have my camera set at what I guessed were the right settings ahead of time (which is a bit of a challenge when you don't know the distance you'll be shooting at). Anyway...before too long we chanced upon EXACTLY what I was hoping for and I nabbed this image of a harbor seal.

NOTE: The entire duration from seeing this seal to capturing the image to having it slip into the Pacific was probably 3 seconds or less - I had no idea this seal was injured and bleeding was until after I began processing the image. I have no idea of the extent of the injury, but assume it was minor (it's not uncommon to see flesh wounds on seals and sea lions - possibly due to aggressive intraspecific encounters or through an unplanned meeting with a sharp rock!).

This image was captured during a trip to the Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) with Ocean Light II Adventures in the summer of 2009. Ocean Light II Adventures offer a number of amazing adventure tours on the central and northern coast of BC (including top-notch bear-viewing and whale-watching tours) and they cater to photographers - I highly recommend them!

Behind the Camera

Last Glance! Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), BC. July 19, 2009.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) 14-bit format; ISO 200.

Nikon D3 with Nikkor 200-400 mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S VR lens @ 400 mm - handheld from floating Zodiac. VR on and in "Active" mode (Zodiac was bobbing in the swells).

1/400s @ f5; -0.33 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting of camera.

At the Computer

Last Glance! Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), BC. July 19, 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 -0.5 stops (to retrieve highlights on light portions of the seal's head) through to 0 stops.

Further digital corrections on 16-bit TIFF file using Adobe's Photoshop CS4 and Light Craft's Light Zone. Photoshop adjustments included compositing and masking of 3 exposure versions, selective colour saturation and desaturation and selective sharpening for web output. Final tone balancing performed using Light Zone (primarily the Tonemapping/Re-light tool).

Conservation

Last Glance! Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), BC. July 19, 2009.

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

Species Status in Canada**: Most Harbour Seal populations in Canada are not listed as Threatened or Endangered. The Lac des Loups Marins landlocked population of Quebec (Ungave Peninsula) currently listed as Endangered (most recent assessment update - November 2007).

The Harbour Seal (Phoca vitulina) is found on both the eastern and western coasts of North America. They tend not to make long migrations and in many areas they are present year-round. When foraging Harbour Seals normally dive to between 30 and 100 metres in depth and stay below the surface for 5 to 6 minutes. On occasion they have been known to dive to depths of over 450 metres and have stay submerged for almost 30 minutes. Harbour Seals have a diverse diet, including cephalopod, crustacceans and a variety of fish such as herring, eulachon, pollock, and salmon.

Historically bounty programs were used in both Canada and the USA to reduce populations of Harbour Seals. In more recent times seals have become protected over much of North America and some populations have rebounded strongly (it is estimated that over 150,000 seals now occupy the coast of British Columbia). There is a land-locked and freshwater sub-species of the Harbour Seal found on the Ungava Peninsula of northern Quebec. This population is now down to an estimated 100 individuals and is listed as Endangered by COSEWIC.

*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