Go With the Flow
An Alaskan brown bear meditates as the river flows by during this sunny and crisp fall day in Katmai National Park, Alaska.
A Pause to Reflect on Fall
Fall comes early to Katmai National Park. This is the time when this wilderness landscape shows its colors before the white blanket of winter arrives. Slopes of tundra light up the higher elevations with a quilt of reds, purples, greens, and yellows. Cranberries, blueberries, crowberries, and watermelon berries abound everywhere. It is a time of abundance.
Brown bears travel far across this wilderness to the salmon-choked streams. By the time fall arrives most salmon have spawned and died in these spawning areas. Soon the bears will hike up to high elevations and dig their hibernation dens. Deep snow high up on the mountains insulates their underground dens from the cold Alaska winter.
The bear in this photo was relaxed as I watched in him in the river. In between meals of salmon he would take long pauses as if he was daydreaming. Salmon were easy to come by, and his thick fur coat covered the layers of body fat he developed over the summer.
In order to capture his pause, where he seems to be meditating, I used a slow shutter speed to blur the flow of the river. Perhaps he was savoring this beautiful fall afternoon before hibernating the long winter.
The Story Behind the Photograph
Katmai was heavenly when I arrived this September. Colorful foliage completely changed the landscape that I had explored earlier in June and July. As soon as the float planned dropped me off at Brooks Camp I hiked up Dumpling Mountain to set up my tent above all the activity way below me. It was quiet and peaceful in my lofty camp up on the tundra. Cranberry, blueberry, crowberry, and watermelon berry plants were all around me, offering up their tasty fall fruit.
Read MoreThe Science Behind the Photograph
There are some interesting scientific questions that arise when looking at this photograph. How did the camera freeze action on the bear while letting the water in the river blur? Why are the colors of the water so rich? Why is the fastest moving water white, and the waves in the rapids blue-green?
Read MoreLimited Edition Prints
Go With the Flow
(30 x 45 in print shown here for scale)
“Go With the Flow” (c) Ed MacKerrow / In Light of Nature. ( 5472:3648, 3:2, 20180910__D2_2507 )