Reach For It!

A photo of my favorite Brown Bear, reaching for a salmon at the edge of the tide flats in Valdez, Alaska. I’ve posted a few photo of this young, gorgeous sow brown bear but for some reason I hadn’t posted this one. In this shot, she’s focused on and reaching for a salmon that you can barely see under the water just in front of her paw.

Specific Feedback Requested

During salmon spawning season it’s pretty much impossible to shoot a photo without seagulls in the background or foreground. They don’t bother me because I live that reality and I don’t give it a second thought. Other people probably find them distracting though so the question is: what would be the best way to remove them, especially in this case where the bear’s hairs overlap the feet of the one gull. If you clone in other hair it isn’t likely to align with the originals. Pixel by pixel might be possible but extremely painstaking. Ideas?

Technical Details

Sony a6500, FE200600GM @ 326 mm, ISO-800, f/6.3, 1/2000, hand held.

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Great body language and awesome capture, I really like the amount of concentration bear is displaying.
Now the answer to your question, if I was the photographer, who loves shooting bears in this location, I would opt for 400 mm f 2.8 lens and shoot wide open.
There may be times during the day, when bears may be present but seagulls are not in great number.

Jagdeep; purchasing a new lens is a possibility but a day with out seagulls during spawning season …


Not so much!

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