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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirty Two: On Safari -- expressing the essence of nature > Grizzly, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2008
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07-OCT-2008

Grizzly, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2008

Only a few moments after entering Yellowstone, we were stunned to see dozens of cars parked along the side of the road. Nearly 100 people were standing nearby photographing a single male grizzly under a blazing mid-day sun. We spent almost a half hour photographing it. It was a very difficult subject. The bear seldom lifted its head. It was digging for underground morsels such as roots. The high sun created harsh contrasts – the bear was dark brown, and the surround logs were light brown. I often found myself making the same mistake – zooming in tightly on the bear instead of pulling back to include its relationship to the environment. The world does not need another animal portrait – we should spend our time as photographers going beyond animal portraiture to create animal landscapes. And that is what I’ve tried to do here. It is an image about an endangered species. Yellowstone is one of the few places in the United States were we can view grizzlies in the wild. The fallen trees in this image have boxed him in – he seems to be wondering which way is out. He also seems cornered and somewhat diminished because of it. He is a living reminder of our natural assets that are living on borrowed time.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/500s f/6.3 at 88.8mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis19-Oct-2008 19:29
Thanks, Carol -- we snagged the heads up shot simply by being there when he decided to grant us the honor. The longer we stayed, the more chances we had to get such a view. As for the environment, I tried to balance the scale of the bear in light of its surroundings. Too small a bear, and the image loses its impact. Too big a bear, the image suffers from lack of context. It's a constant challenge to get the best of both.
Carol E Sandgren19-Oct-2008 19:02
Not ever having seen a bear of any kind of my own, your choice to pull back to include the environment around the bear has shown me the thrill you must have felt discovering him. Great timing on your part to snag a shot of him with his head out of the ground!
Phil Douglis18-Oct-2008 23:12
Seeing a grizzly in the wild for the first time is always a thrill -- yet it is also a sobering moment when you realize just how rare such sightings have become, and how vulnerable these huge mammals are in the wild. In 2007, the US government took Yellowstone's Grizzlies off the endangered species list, but environmentalists have brought suit to relist them.
Tim May18-Oct-2008 21:50
... and thank goodness that our collective body politic has decided to establish these havens for wildlife.
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