Wildlife Photos, Pictures, Prints

Barter Island Polar Bears 8

Posted on October 11, 2011 December 8, 2012

This is another one of my favorite photos from my recent Polar Bear Photography Tour. I was standing next to the boat with my local Inupiat guide when this mom and cub came over to have a closer look at us. We very quickly got back in the boat, but not before I fired off a few pictures at 10fps with the Canon 1DmkIV that I borrowed from Canon Professional Services. The light was absolutely spectacular and for a moment these bears walked side by side allowing me to create this striking image. I hand-held the camera with my Canon 400mm f4 DO IS lens attached and used a right-angle view finder to get the camera as close to the ground as possible while kneeling. It is a single-exposure which was slightly cropped from the original and required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

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Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 9

Posted on October 6, 2011 December 8, 2012

This is another one of my favorite images from July when I spent 6 days on board the Dolphin Dream photographing Atlantic spotted dolphins in the Bahamas. The trip exceeded my expectations and I was incredibly fortunate to have so many wonderful encounters with the dolphins. I’m sure that all of my non-underwater photography friends can appreciate the beauty of this image, but I cannot state emphatically enough how hard it is to create an underwater image like this. Swimming as hard as I can, I am usually totally out of breath by the time I am in the right spot. Before I can dive beneath the surface to take a picture, I have to grab one last breath of air. Once I am underwater, I then hope that a dolphin swims close enough to me to photograph with my wide-angle lens. Most of the time, the image doesn’t happen, but in this case everything came together. I like this image because of the dolphins reflection on the surface. I used my Canon 5dmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image required a bit of processing to remove the cyan cast of the water using Aperture 3.0 and Photoshop CS5.

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Kukak Brown Bear 1

Posted on October 5, 2011 December 8, 2012

At the end of August, I embarked on a dangerous expedition to the Katmai Coast to photograph brown bears. The trip required my friend Paul Souders & I to depart from Kodiak and cross the always treacherous Shelikof Strait using my 22′ C-Dory. There are safer and more expensive ways to visit the Katmai Coast, but none of these options would have allowed us to spend as much time so intimately with the bears. To say that I was scared when we entered the open ocean in less than ideal conditions is an understatement. However, we successfully motored across to our first destination, the spectacular Kukak Bay. After we anchored, we immediately set out for shore to walk amongst the bears. I’ve been around my fair share of bears, but nothing quite prepared me for spending the first day amongst them at such close range. I do not advise people to be foolhardy and run up to brown bears, but they are also not going to attack and eat you under most situations. For instance, this beautiful bore was waiting for a salmon and nonchalantly watched us as we set up our cameras and moved in close enough to take his picture. He drifted in and out of sleep as we observed him for several hours. I’ll share some images soon where he rolled on to his back and stretched, but this low and tight portrait is my favorite. In order to render the distant background pleasantly out-of-focus, I laid on the ground on my stomach to get as low as possible with my Canon 7D and 500mm f4 IS lens. I then waited for him to look straight into my lens whenever he opened his eyes. This image is a single-exposure which required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

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Barter Island Polar Bears 1

Posted on October 4, 2011 December 8, 2012

I have just returned from co-leading my first Polar Bear Photography Tour in Alaska. It was an incredible success! I created some fantastic images, but more importantly, so did my clients. I can’t wait to do it again next year. I’ll be updating my website this fall with information about next year’s tours, but if anyone is still interested in photographing the polar bears this year, my partner Steve Kazlowski is available in Alaska for clients. Please email me at for more information.

This was my first time photographing polar bears. I now understand how addictive photographing them can be. On the last day of my tour, I was able to photograph this mother and cub wrestling in the snow for an hour. It was incredible watching the cub continuously jump on or slide under it’s mom. Check out those mischievous little eyes staring at it’s mom right before it pounces. I was initially frustrated that they were farther away than I would normally like to shoot, but I pulled out all of my equipment in order to get in as tight as possible. I was on a boat which required me to hand-hold my Canon 7D with my 500mm f4 IS lens plus 1.4X tele-extender. That is equivalent to an 1120mm lens! I was able to freeze the action at 1/1000 second by setting my camera to ISO 800. This image is a single-exposure which was slightly cropped and required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

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Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 2

Posted on August 16, 2011 December 8, 2012

This another of my favorite Atlantic spotted dolphin pictures from my recent trip to the Bahamas. I did not have a lot of opportunities to photograph groups of dolphins all at once. However, these 3 yielded a great image as they swam underneath me and gracefully turned towards the surface. I would have preferred fully rotating my camera into the vertical position, but it happened so quickly while underwater and I barely clipped their tails. I love the symmetry of the dolphins and the apparent glee on their faces. I created this image with my Canon 5dmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image is a single exposure which required a bit of processing to remove the cyan cast of the water using Aperture 3.0 and Photoshop CS5.

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Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 1

Posted on August 15, 2011 December 8, 2012

For many years now, my Alaska photography ambitions have conflicted with my underwater photography ambitions. However, this summer I made time in my busy schedule to visit the Bahamas and swim with wild Atlantic spotted dolphins. I joined a trip offered by Captain Scott of Dolphin Dream the first week of August and was not disappointed. Certainly, wildlife photography is never guaranteed, but through persistence and sheer luck I was able to photograph some beautiful portraits of the dolphins over the course of my week-long trip. During the dolphin encounters, they often came close enough to touch while gracefully playing amongst our group of snorkelers. I typically swam on the outside of the group, so that I could photograph the dolphins without people in the scene. I created this image during the first few exciting days of the trip by diving down 20′ towards the sandy bottom as this dolphin curiously swam by and checked me out. I used my Canon 5dmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my new Aquatech 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image is cropped from the original and required a bit of processing to remove the cyan cast of the water using Aperture 3.0 and Photoshop CS5.

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Denali Dall Sheep 1

Posted on August 9, 2011 December 8, 2012

On my first day in Denali National Park, I encountered a large group of Dall sheep up the side of a mountain. I grabbed my camera equipment, including my 500mm lens, and hiked over 1500′ up to them. As I approached the group, they became aware of my presence but did not run away. I was unsure how close they would allow me to get, but they seemed unconcerned by my presence and continued foraging for grasses. I got close enough to photograph individual animals isolated against a clean background. Eventually, I moved in close enough to photograph this nice head-on portrait of a big male looking down on me. I created this image with my Canon 7D, Canon 500mm f4 IS lens, and Canon 1.4X tele-converter. This image is a single-exposure which required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

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Denali Lynx 1

Posted on July 28, 2011 December 8, 2012

During my recent visit to Denali National Park, I photographed this rare portrait of a Canadian lynx. I had been exhausted from driving all night from Wonder Lake back to the park entrance, when a lynx crossed the road in front of my van. At first, I was unsure whether it was real. However, as soon as I pulled up alongside of the lynx, it laid in the bushes next to the road and proceeded to watch me for what seemed like an eternity. I reached for my big lens on the floor behind me and quietly rolled down the window to grab whatever picture I could before it ran away. The lynx seemed unconcerned by my presence, so I got out of the car. In order to minimize the bushes in front of the lynx’s face, I had to lay on my stomach on the road while balancing my camera equipment with one hand. I was less than 30′ away from this beautiful creature the entire time. It was an amazing encounter that I will always cherish. I created this image with my Canon 7D and 500mm f4 IS lens. This image is a single-exposure which required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

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Hartney Bay Sandpipers 32

Posted on July 5, 2011 December 8, 2012

This is another image from my visit to Cordova, Alaska last month. The focus of my trip was photographing the shorebird migration that takes place each spring along the Copper River delta. Naively, I anticipated millions of shorebirds, but I never saw more than perhaps 10,000 all at once. This was still a spectacular sight to photograph, and how many birds did I really need? The best time to photograph the shorebirds was at high tide, which fortunately corresponded with sunrise and sunset that week. I was also lucky that the sky was clear so that I was able to take advantage of the golden light. This is one of my favorite pictures of the birds in flight. I created this image with my Canon 7D and 400mm f4 DO IS lens plus 1.4X tele-converter. I slightly cropped the original image to make a stronger composition, otherwise, it required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

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Columbia Glacier Sea Otters 1

Posted on June 28, 2011 December 8, 2012

While visiting the Columbia Glacier last month, I spent a lot of time photographing sea otters, or should I say, trying to photograph sea otters. They are very shy creatures, and difficult to approach. I had a Canon 500mm f4 IS lens with me, but that lens is way too heavy to hand-hold while motoring around in my inflatable all day. Fortunately, I also had my trusted Canon 400mm f4 DO IS lens, which is much lighter. When combined with my Canon 7D and 1.4X tele-converter, this set up becomes the equivalent of a 900mm lens. I prefer marine mammal images that are photographed from as close to the water as possible. This yields a much better sense of location plus a softer background than images that are taken from higher up on larger boats. This mother and pup kept an eye on me the entire time, which gave me the eye contact that I prefer when photographing wildlife. Keep in mind that I was piloting my inflatable with my other hand while also trying to compose this picture. This image is a single-exposure which required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

In case you missed it, please check out my sea otter article from this trip that were recently published in the UK’s Daily Mail.

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