Check out the July Alaska magazine on stands now until August. A few of my images were chosen for the cover and an article on Katmai. The cover was made at Geographic Harbor in 2012 but seems like it was made yesterday. The experience was something I won't forget. Right after this image was made the bear made a burst right at us, actually at a salmon thankfully, and stopped a few feet away in a explosion of spray. Everyone was so shocked only one of the group was able to grab a short zoom and get any close up images of the bear with a salmon in its jaws. It might sound dangerous but it was really one of the moments that keeps me coming back to Alaska.
This experience is also one reason that you need to know what you are doing, or hire an experienced guide that does, when working with brown bears. Although its tempting to wade into a shallow stream when shooting bears to get a particular angle of view you need to realize that a salmon only needs a couple of inches of water to swim very fast and a bear or bears wont stop at anything to get the fish. To make this cover image I was set up on a dry gravel bar but if we were in a few inches of water I think we would have gotten a much more extreme close up look at this bear!
Its always nice to see one of your images on a cover but as always its never about compensation since this cover and two other images would have covered about 3% of the expenses for the trip. In years past images like this would have paid something like 10% of the total expenses but times have changed.
If you cant find the magazine at the newsstand near you, it also available in electronic formate or let me know as I might be able to help.
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