Alaskan Coastal Brown Bear Cub

[Gary Hamilton]

Female brown bear cub. Katmai National Park in Alaska. July of 2005. If you have seen the Animal Planet/BBC program called "Big Bear Diary," hosted by Jonathan Scott of "Big Cat Diary" fame, you have seen this cub with her brother and their mother known as "Blondie." Unbenownst to me at the time, I was there between a break in the filming of this show. There were three cubs before I arrived, but one was apparently killed by wolves just prior to my arrival. That explains why this cub's brother was often whining in pain (he had a wound on his snout) and the female cub was so shy (she only picked her head up for a few moments in the course of three or four days photographing her, and this image was the result.). The trauma also explained why the cubs did not play with each other, as one would expect.

[Grady Weed]

You can post up to 200 KB here in this forum, makes it easier to help you make adjustments and critique the image. Also if you could post your exif data it would be nice. This is a learning and posting forum for all. I'd say overall the image might have been overexposed and fixed some in PS. It seems a tad bright to me. Still it must have been a nice experience. I appreciate the share.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Gary,
The blacks do havea lot of detail.........so toning down the BG separately may help with the brightness. The expression of the bear and eye contact are wonderful and I like the way you isolated the cub. Nicely done!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great composition, angle and eye contact. Maybe a bit more saturation in the greens.

[Howard Burkert]

I agree with all the comments, and above all toning down the BG separately.I like your story about the image...... Sometimes Mother Nature can be a mean old Mom!!
Best,
Howard.

[Todd Frost]

Gary, nice image and is worth reprocessing. Did a real quick adjustment removing color cast and toning down (Hope you don't mind). See if you like it, as I said it was real quick. You can do a much better job with the original. Keep them coming.

Todd

[Alfred Forns]

Love the re post and would probably take a little of the bottom !!!

You have to feel sorry for the little guys but I have they get over it !!! Must have been an experience!!! Excellent image !!!!

[Steve Canuel]

Nice composition. You did well to capture the trauma that you described. Agree with others about darkening the BG a bit.
Steve