Brown Bears at the Waterfall

After years of living in Alaska and photographing bears in various locations I had in mind a special shot when I flew by float plane to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park. Specifically I wanted to use a slow shutter speed so the falls would appear as a curtain.  This requires shooting at 1/15 second or less, which means that the bears have to cooperate and stand still for that length of time so they won't appeared blurred.   This was in the years before motion stabilizing lenses were invented so I had to use a tripod, something that I have mostly given up today except for night shooting.  I have always used Nikon equipment and for this image I used a 300mm lens.  I don't remember the shutter speed exactly, but I believe it was even less than 1/15 second, perhaps 1/4 second. I took a series of images and the bears appeared the sharpest in this one. 

Mark Newman