August 30, 2011
Lost Horse Creek Cascade in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada

We've returned to Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada, to photograph bears. Unfortunately, we've only seen a few, and they've all been too far away to photograph. All except one, that is. As I was returning from Blakiston Falls along the narrow path through a pine forest, a black bear rounded the corner about 15 yds (about 15m) ahead of me. I stopped, called out "Ho, bear!" and the bear stepped off the path and out of sight into some tall brush. I started to move forward slowly, and the bear came back onto the path and kept heading towards me. I backed up a few steps and thought about getting out of the bear's way, but the tangle of downed trees just off the path would have been difficult to navigate while keeping an eye on the bear. So, I stood still and started calling out, "Off the path bear, off the path." Fortunately, the bear understood and moved off the path and negotiated the downed tree trunks as I moved forward down the path less than 5 yds (5m) away. It was a thrilling encounter, but I was sad that I didn't get any pictures because my camera gear was tucked away in my backpack. Before the great bear encounter, I photographed some cascades on Lost Horse Creek. I used the tilt motion of my 90mm Tilt/Shift to align the plane of focus along the cascade, a polarizer to get just the right amount of reflections on the water upstream of the cascade, and a 3-stop neutral density filter to lengthen the exposure.

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