In October 2014 we made our inaugural safari to the High Arctic on the Beaufort Sea in search of Polar Bears. Without doubt it was one of the greatest photographic opportunities of my life - and I've been photographing wildlife full time since 1986!
Our location, a tiny Inupiaq Eskimo settlement called Kaktovik on a small barrier island, Barter Island, on the northern shoreline of Alaska, offers a truly unique - and probably limited in the future - experience. We travelled in conjunction with Alaskan photographer Steve Kazlowski, who has been photographing the bears here for more than 15 years, and his Inupiat partner and boat skipper Jack Kayotuk. We spent 6 nights in the ramshackle but warm, homely and friendly Waldo Arms "hotel" and were able to venture out in a small boat on four of our days on the island, to photograph bears like I've never seen them before.
We experienced bears up close and at a distance, bears in blizzards and bears in golden evening light, bears nursing cubs, bears sparring and bears at play. Having travelled to Churchill, Manitoba previously - the purported "Polar Bear capital of the World" I can truly say there is simply no comparison. Churchill is almost like Disneyland compared with the real thing...
Below are a simple and quick selection of images from an early edit of the more than 10,000 images Sharna and I took on this safari. They can give you but a small insight into what we experienced...if you are interested in a truly unique and once-in-a-lifetime polar bear photo experience join us in Alaska in October 2015. See the Safaris pages for more details...
Our location, a tiny Inupiaq Eskimo settlement called Kaktovik on a small barrier island, Barter Island, on the northern shoreline of Alaska, offers a truly unique - and probably limited in the future - experience. We travelled in conjunction with Alaskan photographer Steve Kazlowski, who has been photographing the bears here for more than 15 years, and his Inupiat partner and boat skipper Jack Kayotuk. We spent 6 nights in the ramshackle but warm, homely and friendly Waldo Arms "hotel" and were able to venture out in a small boat on four of our days on the island, to photograph bears like I've never seen them before.
We experienced bears up close and at a distance, bears in blizzards and bears in golden evening light, bears nursing cubs, bears sparring and bears at play. Having travelled to Churchill, Manitoba previously - the purported "Polar Bear capital of the World" I can truly say there is simply no comparison. Churchill is almost like Disneyland compared with the real thing...
Below are a simple and quick selection of images from an early edit of the more than 10,000 images Sharna and I took on this safari. They can give you but a small insight into what we experienced...if you are interested in a truly unique and once-in-a-lifetime polar bear photo experience join us in Alaska in October 2015. See the Safaris pages for more details...
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