Users Photos : Photo

Judges Comment

Just magic. Polar bear with her two cubs huddling together on their ice walk. The empty, icy background makes this so peaceful and enhances the beautiful off white tones of the bears, their black noses and eyes, so sweet. What a fabulous opportunity, and once again the overcast flat light really makes the picture special. Very well done, so close. PS mind that signature, it does distract from such a harmonious composition.

Photographers Comment

What a great honor to receive a Mark of Excellence in this particular category, thank you! I used a Nikon D800e with a Sigma DG 150-500 f5-6.3 APO HSM lens at 500mm, 1/750sec, f8, ISO 200 to capture this mama bear and her cubs from the stern of the Akademik Ioffe, a Russian research ship I was on, sailing through the Northwest Passage. The ice-strengthened hull of the ship allowed us to stop within a pack of first year sea ice and shut off the engines, which attracted the bears to within 150m of the ship. Post processing of the RAW image was done in Lightroom v5.3 including exposure, cropping, clarity, shadows, lens correction and noise reduction.
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