Photos from past Alaska bear tours.

I’m offering two Alaska bear photo tours next summer; my August tour is full and I only have two spots left for my June tour.  You can get all the details here:  Alaska bear photography tour.  If you haven’t been up close to these magnificent animals,  you are in for a real treat – an experience of a lifetime that you won’t forget!

Because of their popularity, lots of people are beginning to offer similar bear tours.  Often, it is people with little experience with Alaska or bears that are looking for a way to pay for a trip.  I do believe I have the best bear tour available and thought I would take a minute to point out the advantages – advantages that aren’t always obvious to someone shopping for a tour.  So here they are:

* I have lived in Alaska since 1976, and on the Alaska coast for the last 20 years. So when I offer advice on gear to bring, or places to visit before or after the tour, it is based on many, many years of actual Alaska outdoor experience.

* I started photographing wildlife in Alaska as a youngster 35 years ago and have been a full time photographer for over a decade. This is a great chance to ask questions and learn from someone who pretty much lives and breaths outdoor photography. This tour isn’t just a fun way to pay for an Alaska vacation – it is what I do for a living.

* We will be staying in nice, spacious, warm cabins and using a modern lodge with cell access and wifi. The food and accommodations are very nice for such a remote location, the lodge has a full time cook and a full time baker taking care of our food needs and often offering meals like fresh Alaska fish accompanied with a salad from the lodge gardens.  You won’t be staying four to a room at Brooks Lodge, in a tent, or on a boat dealing with Alaska’s oceans, where you have to board a small skiff with your valuable photo gear just to access the bears. We often see as many bears while back at the lodge as we do in the field – the photo opportunities are literally around the clock.  With Alaska’s challenging weather, you will appreciate a warm spacious lodge at the end of each day.

* This tour includes transportation to the lodge from Anchorage. As you compare photo tours beware as you may find many require an expensive flight to Kodiak or King Salmon that has not been included in the tour price.

* Lake Clark National Park doesn’t have the arbitrary bear viewing distances that you find in Katmai National Park. In Katmai, the regulations restrict you from approaching within 50 yards.  Even if the bear approaches you, Katmai does not allow “Continuing to occupy a position within 50 yards of a bear that is using a concentrated food source”.  On the Katmai National Park website they say “your chances of seeing bears are best when they gather to feed on seasonally concentrated food sources like salmon and sedge grasses.”  obviously the same time and places most Katmai bear tours are typically held.

In Lake Clark, even when we are accompanied by a Park Ranger, we can let the situation and the bears dictate the distance by using common sense and our experienced bear guide – and it is often less then 50 yards especially when the bear is approaching on its terms.  Seeing these beautiful animals up close is a big part of the thrill!

*  Besides myself, we are accompanied by a full time bear guide / naturalist who spends the entire summer with these bears.  The guide often has a biology background, and in most cases, has spent multiple summers with these bears.

*  I limit the number of guests to just 6.  Some tours bring 8 or more and I’m sure it is more lucrative, but I believe this is too many when photographing wildlife.  As the bears move to the left or right, if the group is too big you start getting into each others way.  I have found that a group of six makes cooperation easy and everyone can get the shot.

* We will visit one of the best places to photograph Horned and Tufted Puffin in Alaska short of an expensive trip to St. Paul on an optional boat trip.  Seeing these cool photogenic birds is a real bonus.  We can watch them from shore, with cameras and tripods for an excellent photo opportunity.

*  Repeat clients.  Three out of the four currently signed up for my June bear trip did other Alaska tours or workshops with me last year – half were actually on last years bear tour!

* The lodge owner grew up in Lake Clark area and was one of the first people in Alaska to offer bear viewing tours.  It has been a family run business since the 80′s, and they have been offering bear viewing for over 20 years.  They have been operating with a perfect safety record for almost 30 years. I don’t know of anyone who can come close to their experience offering bear viewing.  The owners of the lodge and their employees are some of the finest people you will meet.

If you have any more questions, you may find the answers at this link, or feel free to contact us directly.  Alaska bear photo tour.

Lake Clark National Park Pictures

Another new one from August.  Janine now has updated our section of Lake Clark National Park pictures – check out the link to see more!

Brown / Grizzly Bear cubs, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

I spent a lot of time watching and photographing these two cubs the year before as first year cubs.  They were just as fun this year as they were last – just a bit bigger.

Brown / Grizzly Bear digging for clams, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

I like this one and as the photographer, that is really all that matters I suppose, but I’m curious what others think – do you like it or hate it?  I’m thinking most people won’t like it, but maybe I’m wrong.

Brown / Grizzly Bear, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

I realized all the photos I have been posting from my week with the brown bears of Lake Clark National Park have been more of the animal in the landscape which tends to be my favorite type of wildlife image.  So today, I thought I would do a nice close up of a beautiful, big brown bear!

Speaking of bears, our August photo tour has sold out, and there are just a few spots left for our June bear photo tour for next summer – for more information see:  bear and puffin photography tour.

Bald eagle, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

I gotta admit, most of my time during my bear and puffin photo tour this past August was spent with… well, bears and puffin.    But, there are lots of other things to see there including this bald eagle.

Brown / Grizzly Bear, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

A Brown Bear watches for salmon during a beautiful sunrise earlier this month during my Alaska Bear and Puffin Photo Tour.  Figured I better post another bear image – they seem much more popular then birds. 

To get this much depth of field I combined two nearly identical images – one where I focused on the bear, the other focused on the mountain across the Cook Inlet.

Here is a quick adjustment to the image where I focused on just the bear and used f/11.  Not sure the top one is really any better.

Horned Puffin, near Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

I wanted to keep sharing brown bear photos, but figured I better mix it up a bit – plus, we did photograph other things beside bears last week, including a black bear, bald eagles and horned and tufted puffin.

These birds are so cute and colorful – they are like living cartoon characters!

A young cub watched intently as its mother digs for clams, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

I find it fascinating to watch wildlife perform a learned behavior, and watching coastal brown bears dig for clams is no exception.  Really, it is amazing!  Although they may have different techniques for opening the clams, they really can become efficient clam diggers.

This was one of two cubs I had watched as spring cubs last year.  It was great to see them still doing well.  One of the cubs had actually learned to dig for its own clams.  It had to dig twice as hard as its mother, and it struggled to open them, but you could tell he was becoming self-sufficient.

This was the other cub who had not mastered the skill yet, and would watch intently as the mother dug clam after clam.  This is what you see here.  I would think it is just a matter of time until this cub begins digging for clams as well.

A sow and cub heading out in search of clams, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

This sow and cub where heading out to dig for clams – a fascinating activity to watch and photograph – I’ll have more on this in my next post.

A brown bear looking for clams along the coast, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

If I was to expose this enough to show detail in the bear, I would have blown out the warm beautiful sunrise light.  So, I purposely underexposed this so that I would just have the silhouette and the wonderful light.

This was captured with a 600mm at f/4.5, 320 iso and 1/2500 of a second on a Canon 7D.

A brown bear and bald eagle both watch for salmon during this years bear photo tour - Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

Well I have some bad news, and good news regarding next years Alaska Bear and Puffin Photo Tour.

The bad news was – we have a tentative person interested in our final spot leaving me without any openings going into the prime booking season!

Now the good news – I was able to obtain another week during 2012!  I am really fortunate to obtain such a great week, as David, the lodge owner is now having to turn away groups thanks to the popularity of this location!  I am very grateful to be able to offer two trips a summer!

My second week being added is at the end of June – the 23rd to the 29th.  I will be interested to see what it is like that time of year.  I do remember comments made by Jenny, my former bear guide – she said the end of June was her favorite time of year.  Kevin, the park ranger in the area for the past 10 years (the first 4 in a tent! ) has also said late June is one of her favorite times as well.  Even Rick, my bear guide this year expressed a preference for late June.  So I’m excited to see what it is like then!

What are the advantages of going in June?  Possibly more bears, especially spring cubs.  This year they were seeing 6 spring cubs by the end of June – that was down to 1 by August.  Short, rich green grass  along with fields wildflower like lupine should be in nice bloom.  Mating activity also takes place during June offering some unique interaction and bringing more bores (males) into the area.

What are the advantages of going in August?  There are two big ones.  Fishing bears – bears catching and eating salmon is always high on the list of advantages of August.  The other advantage is perching puffin – they may not perch as much in June, but they will be flying.

If you are interested or have any questions, please feel free to email or call.  I anticipate these trips will fill fairly quick – certainly by Christmas.  For more information, visit our page for the Alaska bear and puffin photography tour.

Grizzly bear at sunrise, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

We had some wonderful light on my trip last week, and the warm glow on this brown / grizzly bear was no exception!

Brown bear sow looks intently for salmon, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

We had great weather during last weeks bear photo tour!  It was such a treat, I really had fun.  The nice weather did make for some long days, but for light like this, it was well worth it!

Brown bear cub, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

So this is huge, exciting news!  Time Magazine is doing a short story on photo tours in the upcoming June 20th issue, and my Alaska Bear and Puffin tour is one of the featured tours – in fact, it is the only North American photo tour mentioned in the article!  You can’t buy that kind of awesome publicity!  Here is a link to at least part of the article:  Time Magazine photo tour story.

All of my photo tours for 2011 are sold out, and although we haven’t put it on our website yet, we only have 3 spots left for the 2012 bear tour.  Last night, we updated our bear tour page with the dates and pricing for 2012 – I wanted to share it here first because I have a feeling that when the 3 and a half million subscribers to Time Magazine read about it on June 20th we just might find 3 people to sign up for the last spots.  It seems like a long ways off, but there is a lot of interest in this amazing tour, and very few openings during what I believe is the perfect timing.

A Brown Bear cub nursing, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

An unexpected family emergency has lead to a last minute opening for my bear and puffin photo tour.  This is a rare opportunity – this tour originally sold out last October, and the 2012 tour is already half full and I haven’t even put it on the website yet.   I had a pretty good standby list, but not surprisingly, those folks have now made other summer plans, so if you don’t have plans for this summer, you may just be in luck!  This nursing cub was photographed during last years amazing tour.  This is for the full week tour.

I could go on and on about this tour, but I have plenty in the past – take a look at the link, and if you have any questions feel free to give us a call.

I’m really disappointed this person can’t make it – we originally began talking with her a year and a half ago and I know she would have been blown away!  Hopefully she can make it next summer.

A bear cub from last summer's Bear and Puffin Photo Tour

As you may know, despite more then doubling our offerings, our Alaska Bear and Puffin Photo Tour sold out many months.  But, after reading about our overnight boat photo trip into Kenai Fjords National Park, one of the participants wants to do this trip instead so this opens an unexpected spot for this amazing experience!  Follow the link or give us a call if you have any questions, I don’t expect this one to be around too long.

Outdoor Photographer feature pages 1 and 2

Outdoor Photographer feature pages 3 and 4.

Outdoor Photographer feature pages 5 and 6.

This is some exciting news I have been really eager to share – I have been featured in the February 2011 issue of the  foremost magazine for outdoor photographers – Outdoor  Photographer!  I started subscribing to the magazine about 15 years ago when I decided to get back into photography and started shopping for a new auto-focus camera.  So to now be featured is really coming full circle!  It is a wonderful honor that I am very proud of.

The article isn’t just about me, but my recommendations on a visit to Alaska, and even a bit on the above / below water photos I have shared here on the photo blog.  If you don’t subscribe, you can read a version of the article here.  But better yet purchase a copy at a local book store!  Judging from the really nice congratulation comments I have been receiving via email, Facebook and Twitter, I would say it has been available in the Lower 48 for a week or two.  I haven’t received my copy yet in Alaska, nor have I been able to find it in any stores, but it should be arriving soon.

All of the credit for this article goes to Jeff Wignall.  He approached me with the idea and then did all the work, I am really grateful to Jeff for doing such a great job.  If you are not familiar with Jeff Wignall, he has to be the most prolific and successful photography writer of all time.  He has a huge number of book titles, and I believe at least one of his Kodak books on photography sold well over a million copies.  In addition to books, he has his own radio show, is a monthly contributor to Popular Photography and regularly featured in other magazines and blogs.  To learn more about Jeff, take a look at his website:  Jeff Wignall, also check out Jeff Wignall’s blog.  Thanks Jeff!

A spring bear cub, Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

This little guy was a really cute with lots of personality – he was an absolute blast to watch!

Last years Alaska bear and puffin photo tour was such a fun success that I have decided to do two of them next year (2011).  I have had a number of people express interest in this tour, and thought I would bring it up again – don’t wait too long,  we are down to just one remaining spot and I expect it could fill any day.

Well I now have finalized my dates for next summers Alaska Bear and Puffin Photo Tour.  This past summer’s tour was a blast, and I have had a lot of requests for next year, so we have more then doubled our offering for next year.  We have already received several bookings for next years tour.

Here is a little video I made from this summers tour to give people a bit of an idea on what the photo tour is all about.  This is one of the reasons I purchased a Canon Rebel T2i.  This was my first attempt at putting together a video – I gotta admit, the learning curve is very steep!