The weather was pretty miserable here, I had my camera wrapped in a shower cap with rubber bands holding it to the edge of the lens, hoping that they really had made the 40D to handle wet weather. Every time I look at this image, it takes me to that point in time, feeling wet, cold, and I imagine this wolf cub had a similar thought “Why am I out here, I should be trying to find cover!”.

Shot at the Lakota Wolf Preserver in New Jersey.

(Sorry for the lack of postings lately, just got back from a great vacation in Florida.)

This is another shot from my trip to New Jersey, at the Lakota Wolf Preserve. We had a rather sizeable rain storm come through while we were there, and this one was taken in the middle of the day with a very dark rain cloud still over head. The rain had let up to a light drizzle, and so I left the cover of the bus to go take some more photographs.

This is one of their wolf cubs, and while the image is dark, it was dark, so I think it represents the mood and feeling. I was rather pleased with my camera’s handling of the high ISO, since my 10D didn’t do nearly as well.

My brother-in-law Dave and I went out shooting early one of the mornings we were in the Grand Teton National Park. We were in a hurry to get back from Mormon Row to our camp at Coulter Bay, because they had a big day planned and we didn’t want to be late. Along the way, we saw several cars lined up along side the road (typical sight for the parks, not always worth stopping).

Then we saw that a ranger also had parked, lights flashing and he was out of his vehicle along the side of the road. If that wasn’t enough, we then spotted a couple of photographers with 600mm lenses also. That was our cue to get out our cameras and check it out. The longest lens I have is my f/4 EF70-200 with a 1.4x extender, so that would have to do.

We were pretty excited when we saw that it was a bear that everyone was watching, then another one walked out into the field. The ranger informed us that they were two siblings left by their mother a few months ago and they were foraging for breakfast.

We stood, watched, and took many many pictures, hoping that they would maybe stand up, or at least play with each other, but they kept getting closer and closer to the road. When we got there, I imagine they were about 150 feet away, the ranger said a couple of times that if they got much closer we’d have to get in our vehicles. I felt pretty good, since I thought I could outrun a few of these photographers with their big lenses.

Apparently it was too early to play, and they didn’t do too much. Once they got to about 50-60 feet away I decided that it was time to get in the car. It was curious that the ranger had let them get that close, but he must have known something that I didn’t.

So while I didn’t get a shot of a bear standing on it’s hind legs, or playing with his brother/sister, I did manage to get one that looks as though he was smiling. Perhaps thinking along the lines “How close can I get before they all run away?”. After all, it was breakfast…

Have you ever seen a bear in the wild?
How close were you?

I had a great opportunity to go to New Jersey on a Popular Photography Mentor Series tour in August.  One of our stops was the Lakota Wolf Preserve.  They had many incredible animals, and the fences had little cutouts for cameras.  I caught this one looking straight at me, and I wonder what he was thinking…

It was very dark and cloudy, and moments after this it stormed.