Six months later I have been awarded a very coveted “Highly Honoured” prize from Nature’s Best Photography for my image Peer Amid (below). We are off to Washington DC for the presentations and to see our polar bear images hanging in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. PS2: January 2018 “Warm Embrace” chosen for the…
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Polar Bears
Morning comes with pink and purple hues. We travel once more across the desolate landscape to our pick up point and the train rolls in for the long ride back to Churchill. Until next time, goodbye bears!
It is my last chance to see bears today. The light is nice, sunny with some high cloud and not too much wind, but still -37C. The scouts report that a bear with two cubs has been spotted and they are just waiting for her to settle in a spot before taking us to her. …
A morning of beautiful light adds to the optimism of another attempt to find bears. Winds are high and airborne ice crystals act to defuse the bright sunlight like a soft filter. If only the bears will come! We wait all day near a den opening in a snow drift, hoping for an appearance, but…
We greet the morning with high hopes of seeing the same bears again. The weather has changed and snow flurries with high winds are in store. The day passes slowly on the tundra. The scouts can tell by the tracks that mum and cubs are still in the forest. Flurries and flat light last all…
I have now resigned myself to the waiting, and to the low percentage of chance to getting good bear shots on this trip. The bumpy ride out is the same, and I tune out the conversations in favour of reading a book. FYI I am reading “The Nymph & the Lamp” an amazing old novel…
The days begins exactly the same. We have a collection of good luck charms now sitting on the dash – anything to get the universe to bring bears! I have a penguin charm and my friends have polar bear stuffies. I am now beginning to worry that I will be one of those unlucky ones…
I don’t even want to write about it. I have spent another day sitting in the cramped quarters of the van. My knees ache from inertia and my back is killing me from all the bouncing. It becomes contagious, this mood of not wanting to shoot anything if there are no bears. Forget snowscapes. The…
The day begins with high optimism. A balmy -35C with sun and light breeze will make shooting much easier today and we head out with high hopes. We spend 8 hours bumping around on the tundra and find only bear tracks. The van gets high centred in a snow drift and the experienced staff has…
My gear has fully recovered except for my 24-70mm lens which is foggy. I only have a tiny bit of frost bite on the end of my nose. Others are much worse off including my roommate whose big lens is toast. Low temperatures, fog, flurries and low visibility have us lodge-bound on an hour to…