Coastal brown bear in a meadow of lupine wildflowers, Katmai National Park, Alaska Peninsula, southwest Alaska. Canon 5D Mark III, 500mm f/4L IS, w/1.4x, 1/400 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 640
This is a cropped version of a photo I took on coastal Katmai last month. Even at 700mm, I could have been closer, but thanks to the great quality of the 500mm lens and the file of the 5D Mark III, I am able to crop in and still have substantial file size for reproduction. I’ve been working on my 2014 calendars and have tagged this image as a possible cover shot for my 2015 calendar. I was hoping for more images like this, but the bears were so busy eating that they rarely looked up, let alone, in a profile or direct view with eye contact. The purple, brown, and green is a really nice color combination, and makes a very pleasing palette.
I second the motion for this photo as the cover for the 2015 calendar! Well, there will be other photo contenders as time goes by, and they may be just as good as this one if not better – so just consider this a tentative vote for the cover photo!
Thanks Vivian, we will see what else might shake out by that time.
Great shot as always Patrick! I very much enjoy all of your updates, every Alaskan scene is so recognizable to me now 🙂 Love the flowers, I saw fields full of them in the south when I was there. And today I drove by a Denali grizzly when I was out in the park, and it didn’t pay any attention to me at all – way too busy eating berries! I wonder, did you get any good Fireweed shots from your trip? It seemed it was covering every inch of Denali these last weeks!
The bear looks like she is in heaven! Great new slideshow pix too. But I miss the polar bear and fox shots! Wonderful blog.