several years ago I was cruising along
the coast of British Columbia up in
northern on the west coast of Canada and
Marvin Robinson a First Nation get gat
guide a wonderful man came up to me and
out of the blue does you know he’s got
talking and he found out I was a
photographer and he told me that Canada
oil sands wants to ship their bid him in
their oil their dirty crude through
these narrow passageways and he said
please help me can you do a story and
help us keep these oil tankers out of
there so I tried to think what could I
do that would help bring attention to
this area this sensitive fragile habitat
and I thought I could do a story on the
crow Modi bear the spirit bear the black
bear that has the rare recessive gene
that’s pure white and I thought if I
could just get pictures of this really
rare hard to find a loose of white bear
then I can bring attention to this cause
of trying to keep oil tankers out of
this area it’s such a beautiful pristine
habitat now proposing that story was one
of the Dumber things I’ve ever done if
this bear is more rare than the Panda it
rains 24/7 in this area it’s not a nice
place to work but off we went
and I told Marvin Robinson the spirit
bear get get guide that I was having a
really hard time finding bears there was
a place where tourists go they have a
higher chance of seeing spirit bears I
didn’t want to go there I don’t like the
trees I didn’t like the habitat I didn’t
want to be other run around other people
I wanted to lose myself in the habitat
with this wonderful bear and so he said
I’ll put you on this Creek I can’t
guarantee anything but I know of a great
big male spirit bear and if you see him
he’s wonderful he’s gentle and he’ll
give you all your pictures and so I sat
there for a month along the edge of this
river and one day I’m walking back to
the boat sort of you know my head held
down low and camber gears all wet and
kind of kind of bumming out and kind of
miserable and thinking you know this
it’s not going to end my career but you
know it really it would really suck to
fail a coverage for National Geographic
and just tell him I couldn’t do it
because I proposed it and they always
remind us here that you know there a
magazine they publish pictures not
excuses so I’m walking back to the
sailboat lost time I catch out of the
corner of my eye there’s this big bear
just sitting there on the forest beside
me on the other side of the river I take
a couple pictures he comes down to the
river
and he grabs a big salmon and before I
know it I find my the the intensity I’ve
been trying to get this moment now for
three months the intensity of just
wanting to get this situation I find
myself three feet away from this bear
I’m shooting this scene on a 16
millimeter lens wide-angle I’ve got
off-camera flash going pop-up pop-up
motor drives cooking
he could hardly care that I was there he
just ate his fish and he was so casual
he would take his big pink salmon he
would lay it up on a rock take one one
nail one clod he’d cut it open suck the
eggs out let the fish go and he would
swim away with his belly cut open and I
had you know I ended up killing a lot of
fish following this bear up the river
because he was wounding all these fish
and it just made me sad for him but
there and they were gonna die eventually
in the spawning process and then I
followed him into the forest you know
I’ve always dreamed of being close to a
barren of forest we’ve seen pictures of
bears along rivers and I followed him
into the forest and he’s eating this
fish and all sudden he stands up and he
walks right up to me he’s about a foot
away from me two feet from me and he’s
just staring at me and I’m crouched down
I’m staring at him and he looks so
relaxed and I realized that there was
only one little entrance into this
little cove and I was blocking his exit
so I stepped to the side like this and
he walked back and went down to the
river and got another fish and this went
on for two days and I got to the point
where I could start shooting art of this
you know artistic artful pictures of
this bear when I photograph I use a
formula I say 20 percent of your time
just nail the picture get something get
it sharp get in the middle you know get
the exposure right give my editor
something to look at and then once I get
that I jump into the next 60 percent
where I try and push the photography
artistic boundaries a little bit you
know here I was doing these three second
exposures and bears never stopped moving
their head so when I’m doing three
second exposures I’ve got all these
sharp butts and all these blurry heads
and all you can see is sort of a white
ball and so finally I got sick of this
and I’ve taken about 500 pictures at
this point and I waved my arm and I like
this and he just goes stops for a second
he stares that mean I go click and that
was the only one that was sharp
and then finally this I call this a walk
so I followed him I followed him up into
the forest and it was really sort of
eerie you’re in this forest and it’s
just shaved and paved forest is terrible
but way up in the hills there was this
one old-growth cedar that the the
loggers left behind probably because it
was culturally modified if you look at
this here the the first nations probably
you know hundreds of years ago cut off
the bark to make baskets and that’s why
the first nations think that that big
beautiful red cedar was not taken down
and the bear chose that tree to go to
sleep on her and as we were heading out
this we got this entire story out of
three months we got it in a day and a
half if you can imagine and it was on
the last week of the three months and I
was were heading out in the sailboat we
see a bear up on a hillside eating crab
apples and it was so dark they could
hardly see but I thought I’d grab a
couple pictures I wasn’t that excited by
them at the time after having this
incredible experience on the river but
somehow it made the cover of National
Geographic which was pretty exciting and
it also was great because it gave my my
girlfriend partner Christina minima who
founded international League of
Conservation photographers and when she
found out we were there working she
brought an entire team of the some of
the world’s top photographers and she
brought an NBC TV TV ABC Treehugger
you know bloggers and Dahmer’s and she
brought in everybody to bring attention
to this cause and right now we’re
currently still working with the First
Nations and we’re we’re doing well we’re
fighting a good fight against the
counted oil sands and shipping their
dirty oil through these waters and we
need your help on that issue as well
