Photography Workshop at Lake Clark National Park

I had the pleasure of joining Dale Franz for another Franzfoto Safari while at Lake Clark National Park - there were 8 of us photographers total, and it was an amazing experience! Some of the photos on previous posts were taken with Dale's Class, but I thought I would share a few photos of the group!

Dale has another similar trip planned for the first week in July 2010 and I highly recommend it! They will be staying next door to the Homestead, the Silver Salmon Creek Lodge.








I thought that Lynn's mosquito netting above was funny the first day, but I donned it day 2, as it's a necessary part of the equipment. In this photo below, I don't know if Art was taking a rest on his Canon 500mm lens or if he was just dodging mosquitoes! Art was on last year's Yellowstone trip - so it was good to see another fellow student! Art has been back to several of Dale's trips - that's the sign of a great photography instructor, lots of return students!




This last photo shows the gang traveling via ATV guided by Drew from the Silver Salmon Lodge. Drew has been living out there for several years and even spent a couple winters as a caretaker, so he's the local brown bear expert!

Kirk took this photo of the gang from his ATV and Heather & Tyler were with him. When 9 year old Tyler saw me with the gang of photographers, he pulled me aside & said, "Mom, do you know you're the only girl in your workshop?" Luckily it was another GREAT group of photography students and they welcomed me although I'm not one of their kind!

Lessons learned on vacation about Alaska's Coastal Brown Bears

We learned a lot about Alaska's Coastal Brown Bears on our vacation this month so I thought I would share a few lessons learned from our hosts and guides while photographing bears at Lake Clark National Park

All the bears we photographed were brown bears - that's exactly the same biology as what we call grizzly bears here in the lower 48. The bears at Lake Clark National Park - just north of Katmai National Park (290 air miles southwest of Anchorage) are not as aggressive as other brown bears for several reasons: first, they have plenty of food, and second, they have grown up with us humans watching and photographing them and don't view us as a threat. Unless we don't follow the rules!

The lodge that we stayed at, the Alaska Homestead Lodge is one of two lodges in this area, and there are no cars or highways, only planes and boats. So the area has brown bears like these roaming freely and they were a pleasure to observe!

The bears senses are extremely good, especially smell. They can smell something up to 2 or 3 miles away. You will often observe them with nose in the air, and then I notice that way in the distance there's something new on the scene - like a sow or cub smelling a boar in the distance! Our guides had us observe bears from the upwind side so that they can smell that we are just more humans, not anything threatening to them!

The adult male is called a "boar" and is the top of the food chain here. This boar is estimated at 900 pounds, but they can grow to 1200 pounds.

I thought they were quite scary looking compared to the cubs and sows - this boar appears weather and lots of scars on his head and shoulders - as well as lots of missing fur from his behind. We were told that sometimes their fur gets stuck to the den and it gets ripped off! Yikes!



The adult female is called a "sow" and are a little smaller and a little lighter in color, although they are very protective of their cubs and can be extremely aggressive if startled.



The cubs stay with the sow until their 3rd year when momma kicks them out. We saw a lot of second and third year cubs, but no first year cubs as the sow was still keeping them hidden. We took lots of photos of this mom and cub clamming at low tide - it was quite a thing to observe. And we went clamming ourselves and learned how wonderful they taste!



There are dozens of brown bears all around this area, at one point on our final evening we saw nine different bears within our view and we called it the "grand finale." We got to know a few of the faces....like this clamming sow and cub are in many of the photos - the cub is a second year male cub that my photography group starting calling "attack cub" as he kept approaching the group quite aggressively and all it took was the guide standing tall and saying, "Go back to your momma attack cub," and he would oblige!

We saw lots of bear tracks all over and learned a few things about tracks. A general rule for determining the brown bear's size by the pawprint is that if you measure the width of the print in inches, you just add one and change to feet, and this first 6 inch wide print should be that of a 7 foot brown bear. I'm sure there are dozens of exceptions to this rule, but we're sticking with it for now!

Lake Clark National Park - Day 3

On Day 3 at the Alaska Homestead Lodge, we were having so much fun we decided to stay an extra day! Our hosts, Sheila and James Isaac have been so wonderful, their guide Scott has been so helpful, three wonderful home cooked meals a day, fresh bread at most meals....we are loving this place!

The kids and the bears are getting more comfortable with each other - Tyler is smiling on the swing as one of the brown bears passes by the lodge behind him. But we do always make sure there is an adult with the kids when they are outside! The hardest thing for me personally is to remember that if a bear ever approached you are NOT to run - every cell in my being tells me to run when a bear charges! But luckily we have not had any bears charging us and we've always had a trained guide at our side!

There are several other lodges in this national park, and the National Park Service website has more detailed information.










These last few photos are taken of a full grown male brown bear called a boar - they are a little different shape and coloring than some of the others, and you can tell they have some scars and have had a tough time. They are also about 900 pounds and I think they are a little ugly looking.....but when you are the top of the food chain, looks don't really matter I guess!

Lake Clark National Park - Day 2

We have spent 3 full days here at the Alaska Homestead Lodge - a fly in bear viewing and fishing lodge at Lake Clark National Park in Alaska. It is beautiful, amazing, definitely the most wilderness that we have ever experienced. The brown bears (grizzly bears that inhabit the coastal areas in Alaska) really do just roam the lawn and the woods and ignore us humans!

Dale Franz led an amazing week long photography workshop to photograph these bears - and I can't wait to edit all my images. But these are some of my favorites.












This last photo was an amazing moment on the beach yesterday, when this 3 year old male cub approached a bald eagle..... a photography moment that we all watched in amazement as it unfolded!

The Best of Yellowstone Photos!

Being home a few days from my amazing Yellowstone trip, I have been editing photos and wanted to share my favorite images. Some have been shown in previous BLOG POSTS and some are new, but they are my favorites.

I <3 Yellowstone!

It's the Survival of the Fittest in Nature.......and even at Yellowstone Park

I have a couple sad stories that have been weighing on my heart though my week in Yellowstone and the week after....

The first is the only wolf we saw up close and the only wolf I have ever photographed. It was following the river and we happened to be right across the river (at a potty stop) when the wolf and the throngs of folks following the wolf came passing through. (There was a long traffic jam following the wolf!) Once we saw him (or her?) in our telephoto lenses, you could tell that the wolf was injured. It had a bad rear leg. Watching it and photographing it made many of us sad, pondering how it can survive in the wild with this injury? Here's the best photo I was able to get with my 18-200mm lens...



and the photo of the same wolf that my friend Heidi Haas Williams took with her 500 mm lens...



And moving on, we spent quite a bit of time watching this mother moose and her baby calf....there was a lot of activity, a lot of park service attention, a lot of vehicles, and we finally heard the story, that the calf had been injured by a bison.

As the story goes....a bison scared off the momma moose, and then the baby kept approaching the bison. After several failed attempts, the bison finally got rough, and injured the poor baby moose. There were some rumors of broken back, broken legs, etc. Some of us were too sad to even photograph the baby moose...but last we heard, the pair were doing fine, and everyone had high hopes that the baby would recover. Nature photographer Dave Cowell was able to get some dramatic photos of the event itself which are online at the Yellowstone Forum.




OK, one final last sad story....all week we were following the activity of Rosie and her two cubs....a black bear momma with two red tags in her ears, therefore the name Rosie. She has two cubs that are around 5 months old (how does one really know this about bears since their cubs are born when they are hibernating???) And we spent lots of hours in the rain watching Rosie & Cubs and got attached!

Well after getting home this week, I have heard some sketchy reports and photos of Rosie and one cub being injured...I read this on a Yellowstone Forum, and there's a Second Post with photos. I guess I got a little attached to those little cubs looking through that big lens for hours!

But as I am sad to see injured animals, obviously there is need to keep Yellowstone wild and not do a lot of human intervention. Unfortunate for Rosie and cubs, but I realize the harm us humans can do when we try to dictate what should happen in the animal world.

I have certainly learned a lot about photography, wildlife, and our planet through this great Wildlife Workshop! Those are the best vacations when you get away, spend lots of time in the great outdoors, have lots of laughs with friends, and learn something at the same time!

Silly Photographer Photos in Yellowstone

Sometimes when I'm together with a bunch of photographers, all I can come up with is silly photos....all of us out there in the rain, so excited to capture a wonderful image....but my brain must have been in the toilet a few of these days as all I could photograph is these funny photographers with their funny lenses!

What do you think these two are doing?


"That's a funny lens - is that Nikon or Canon that has that extension?"



"Sure isn't the way I learned to handle a big lens in Photo School!!"


How many big lenses can you fit in one vehicle?



On a rainy day, Heidi was bored and decided to look into her neighbor's ear with her big lens!!


"Which photographer would you hire? The one outside in the pouring rain, or the one shooting through the window of the car? Tough choice!"