Alaska polar bears While guiding a group of photographers on a recent tour for Alaska polar bears, aurora and other opportunistic arctic subjects, we had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time with these playful polar bear cubs. Like many young animals, they are curious, playful and active, when the parents often sleep or rest.…
Cloudy skies, although not good for aurora, offered some good light for afternoon photography of this family of polar bears. The sow with two cubs take shelter from the winds common to the north coast of Alaska’s arctic. Shooting directly into the wind with lightly blowing snow at temperatures around freezing present some problems with…
Every year in early October I co-guide a photo tour to Alaska’s arctic with friend and colleague Hugh Rose. We do two trips back to back actually, taking 8 photo and nature enthusiasts on a venture for the magic of the emerging arctic winter. While we are omnivorous regarding subject material, the aurora borealis, polar…
Time to take a little bend in the road of still photography and explore some of the newly bundled features in today’s quickly evolving digital cameras-HD video. Since the inclusion of HD video in the Canon 5D Mark II, I’ve enjoyed playing around with it a bit, with an emphasis on “playing”. It is less…
A few comments about photographing white subjects in white environments; in particular the issue of exposure and post production adjustments in Lightroom 2.5. Let me first state that I’ve always utilized an expose-to-the-right shooting style (you can explore that concept on luminous-landscape if you are unfamiliar with it). To summarize that briefly, it is a…
This is another frame taken on a recent Arctic photo tour that I co-guide with Hugh Rose. We expanded to two trips this year, due to increased interest. This female polar bear was looking pretty healthy, and had been feeding on carcasses left over from the Autumn Bowhead whale hunt in the native village of…
In my observations and photography in nature, I consider the polar bear to be one of the most amazing animals, exhibiting tremendous adaptation which has made them fit for survival in a harsh climate. They are generally a solitary animal, with a tremendous range of up to 1000 miles. Much of their life on the…
Polar bears congregate along Alaska’s north coast when the scent of the bowhead whale carcasses show up from the autumn indigenous whale hunts. Barter Island, located just off the Alaska mainland, is bordered by the Beaufort Sea to the north. It is growing in popularity as a destination to view polar bears, an amazing experience…