Ten years ago, I got off a de Havilland Beaver, the quintessential bush plane of the Canadian north, and stepped into the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary for the first time—and it was love at first sight. The long inlet not far from the border with Alaska is flanked by mountains and cliffs, all covered in evergreens draped with flowing moss, and ends in an estuary that’s impossibly green and home to grizzly bears safe from the guns of hunters. If you’ve never seen my monograph, KHUTZEYMATEEN, I invite you to click here to download a free copy as a thank you for being part of what I do. Th ..read more

As far as photographic advice goes, this one is a favourite: don’t shoot what it looks like; shoot what it feels like. It sounds like something I would say, doesn’t it? It’s not my original quote, but it is very poetic. I don’t even remember when I first heard it, but it sure struck a chord. I had found my mantra. I remember thinking it was the. best. advice. ever. And then I picked up my camera and realized I had no idea how. Like so many aphorisms, “shoot what it feels like” would take some deciphering. There was no emotion-priority mode on my camera, and when I was learning, there was no ..read more

I do a little moonlighting for a small computer and imaging company that rhymes with Snapple. They are under the mistaken impression that my nearly 40 years behind the camera means I know what I’m talking about. Still, I like the challenge. One of my first tasks as their Creative Storytelling Specialist (yeah, I don’t know what that means, either) was to help the engineers understand mood as it relates to picture-making. So to get a head start, I did some poking around the internet in hopes that people with greater minds than I had already articulated the idea of mood. Mostly what I found wa ..read more

Photography can be many things. For some, it’s about capturing scenes. For me, it’s about conveying emotions and suggesting narratives that resonate deeply, first with me and then with the viewers who might experience the image. I’m not so much after eyes as I am hearts and minds. Mood does that. The mood of a photograph is its emotional tone—a subtle yet powerful element that can transform a simple image into a compelling one that is more than visual but also visceral. Mood in photography refers to the overall feeling or atmosphere an image evokes in the viewer, ranging from joy and serenit ..read more

In two days, I pack the truck and head north up Vancouver Island to meet my wolf guide, Tom, before spending two weeks camped on a remote island, waiting for coastal wolves to wander in front of my cameras. Maybe some otters, bears, or eagles, too. I can’t wait. Packing for a trip is always a mix of excitement and indecision. When I go to Kenya, I’m on autopilot; I know the gear and how to pack it. I’ve got packing lists that I follow, and there’s really no thinking required. But a new destination is a bit of a guessing game, so over the years, I’ve reduced it to three bi ..read more

Every year, off the coast of Vancouver Island, the place I call home, the herring spawn by the millions. The usually dark green water turns a magnificent chalky blue-green as the herring do the reproductive dance that makes them a keystone species, while at the same time drawing in an astonishing number of animals: gulls, seabirds, bald eagles, sea otters, harbour seals, sea lions, orca, grey and humpback whales. What an experience! At times, I could turn 360 degrees and see dozens of whales, hundreds of eagles, and thousands of gulls, the surface of the water broken every few second ..read more

My work in Kenya didn’t go as planned. Story of my life, right? But I’m not referring to the fact that my first two days in Kenya were spent in bed in a tent in the bush, with an IV fluid and antibiotic drip, trying to get a fever down. I’m not referring to the fact that unseasonable rains changed everything, including the presence (scarce!) of animals that we were there to photograph. I don’t even mean the fact that one of my cameras kept malfunctioning at the worst of times. Like the one single cheetah sighting we had, where I raised my camera and…nothing. No focus, no aperture, just t ..read more

This is another long one, but if you’ve ever struggled to understand Exposure Value Compensation (or never used it), this might help. Put the coffee on and settle in for a bit. Skipping past the inevitable moment when I’m walking around with my 600mm lens and someone asks if I’m compensating for something, the answer is generally yes. I am. But it’s not what you think. After my last article about digital noise and high ISOs, I received a good question about the use of Exposure Value Compensation (or “EV compensation”), and this felt like as good a moment as any to try to clarify it f ..read more

“Life,” said Helen Keller, “is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.” The same can be said about art and the effort to make it. Adventure is defined as ” a risky undertaking of unknown outcome, an exciting or unexpected event.” Risky. Unknown. Unexpected.  Art-making has a wildness to it, an untamed quality. I know I’ve written about this before, but when Picasso was asked if he knew what his paintings would look like before he even put paint to canvas, he replied, “No, of course not. If I knew, I wouldn’t bother doing it.” It is the adventure of art-making that makes it unpredicta ..read more

I loaded my gear into my truck last week and headed 12 hours north to the mouth of the Chilko River, my first trip since the amputation. I drove the same route a year ago, through towering mountains and golden aspens, my mind less on the bears I would photograph and more on the looming surgery. If I didn’t change my mind, I’d have my leg removed below the knee in a few months. I spent that entire drive trying to calm the voices in my head, the ones asking if I was crazy, the ones wondering if I’d ever drive this kind of trip again or actually do the things I was replacing ..read more