Onward to 2010

[Ken Watkins]

Another shot from our stunning trip to Svalbard.

EOS 1D MkIII

500mm F4 IS hand-held

F6.3, 1/2500, ISO 400, EV-1/3rd

[John Ippolito]

Love the pose, angle, and quality of light on this one, Ken. Good detail, texture and feel for the ice. I have no problem with square crop. Since the bear is so close to the bottom of the frame, you could even take a smidge off the top and right sides for balance, but this is just being picky. Very nicely done. Happy New Year.

[Steve Kaluski]

Raising the 'bar' hey Ken:D

Like the POV, colour and detail in this one, and, the square crop doesn't worry me, it works well. My only point about a square crop is how you can place a headline, body text or anything else within it, plus does it look right? Hence the portrait or landscape format. Guess this was taken at the pointy bit rather than the blunt end?;)

BTW in answer to your PM someone has thrown a spanner in the works this afternoon! Ho Ho Ho :D

Steve

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Love this one with all the different tones in the snow and the rim lighting. Must have been magical to see these guys. Just curious, were you shooting from a boat (it looks awfully close):eek:!

[David Fletcher]

Ken, the light quality and balance is outstanding. Crop choice for web images doesn't bother me, no text being offered, but it is a tad tight on the bottom and hope you have masses of options. Lovely work.

[Marc Mol]

The rim lighting, HA and rear paw make this for me, nicely done Ken
TFS

[Harshad Barve]

beautiful image Ken for all reasons mentioned above ,
HNY & TFS

[Ken Watkins]

Thanks for all of the kind comments, and a happy NewYear to you all with lots of good sightings!

Steve
I do not expect to publish this other than on my website the crop was determined by what was available, I chose it because of the raised leg.

Jackie
This was indeed taken from the boat, the bears were often curious and came very close even standing against the hull, not the best angle for a shot and the sort of shot I actually do not like unless I was advertising. This was probably less than 20 metres away as it is not a large crop.

David,
The tightness in the frame is probably caused by the rolling of the boat, it was difficult to keep the entire subject in frame I have many clipped shots!

[Bibhav Behera]

Brilliantly done. The soft backlighting makes this one for me. A bit more space on the left maybe?

[Arthur Morris]

You have made a beautiful image of a very handsome, clean bear in sweet light. The water above the bear is a bit distracting.

Were you on an organized photo trip? How cold was it?

[Sid Garige]

Like the over all feel of the image very well. Composition is perfect. Kind of rim light added a great feel to image.

[Ken Watkins]

Were you on an organized photo trip? How cold was it?

We were with Andy Rouse, it was not as cold as we thought it would be, but we had plenty of layers.

The only time I felt really cold was in the evening at our barbecue when there was slight snow, so we just stood round the campfire.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the info Ken. Any idea what the temperatures were like? In Antarctica, the coldest temps that we encountered were in the low 30s F but those were the extremes. In reality, it was not really cold down there....

[DanWalters]

Like the rim lighting and the blue color of the surrounding ice.

[peter delaney]

great image Ken... one of your best , hope you do not mind me saying that ..
love the quality of light ...

Look forward to more ,

peter

[Ken Watkins]

great image Ken... one of your best , hope you do not mind me saying that ..
love the quality of light ...

Look forward to more ,

peter


How could I object to that, thanks a lot.