In the master review column, jerry Shu will analyze a wonderful wildlife photography work that has won or been shortlisted around the world, and present more wonderful content behind the photo from the aspects of shooting story, species behavior, equipment parameters, shooting location information, etc.
One of the winning photos of wildlife photography that I share today was a finalist in the Mammal behavior category of the 2012 BBC Wildlife Photography Contest, and is a wonderful photo of an American photographer Jenny E ross taking a photo of a polar bear adventure stealing bird eggs on a cliff in a national park on Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic region of the Russian Far East, which the photographer named "dangerous picking".
Photo story
The photographer was taking a rubber boat to shoot here in the bird cliff, and suddenly found that there was a white patch on the mountain, at first it was thought to be a white snow from a distance, and when it was close, it was found that it was a polar bear, and the photographer immediately understood what the polar bear was doing and why it behaved like this.
Arctic sea ice is crucial for polar bears, the main thing is that their hunting places are basically done on sea ice, and the main food is seals. But as global warming, more and more of the sea ice in the Arctic sea is disappearing, and for polar bears, they are no longer able to survive, and they are forced to stay on islands throughout the summer, and must wait for the sea ice to freeze again in the autumn before they can return to the familiar hunting place and continue to live.
The young male polar bear in the picture is estimated to have fainted from hunger and lack of experience, so he took the risk and came to this cliff to pick up bird eggs to eat. The densely packed birds on the cliffs are the thick-billed cliff sea crows that come to the Arctic in the summer to breed the next generation, and in the face of such a huge predator, it is estimated that these seabirds are also blinded, and they can't fight, and they can't escape with eggs, only God blesses. But the photographer said that the polar bears obviously lacked life experience, on the one hand, they could fall off the cliff at any time and scream for their lives, on the other hand, the bird eggs they ate did not have too much fat and energy, and they did not eat enough energy to consume such a juggling climb, which was not cost-effective. Photographer Jenny added that this is the high latitude of the Arctic and the island, which belongs to the national park jurisdiction of northern Russia, and there would have been a lot of sea ice here in the summer, but the sea ice she photographed this year disappeared very badly. She also said that if this continues, it will be a great threat to the survival of polar bears.
Introduction to the subject
Let's start with two species, the polar bear and the thick-billed cliff crow.
The basic information of polar bears may be read more, and there is a lot of content that can be found on the Internet. Here is mainly to talk about the living state of polar bears, they mainly live in the Arctic, but what you may not know is that the main food of polar bears is seals, but they are not as fast as seals in the water, so the main hunting place is sea ice, they will use the cover of the surrounding sea ice to slowly swim close to the seals that inhabit the sea ice, and then raid and attack, hunt seals on the sea ice or in the nearby sea water, or wait for the sea ice to breathe in the spring, waiting for the seal to appear. Seals are also a favorite of polar bears and the most suitable food to resist the low arctic temperatures.
When the temperature rises every summer, the sea ice begins to melt, so the polar bear hunting ground disappears, and they have two choices, either to follow the sea ice north, the advantage is that they can continue to live on the sea ice, but the disadvantage is that the sea ice is melting too fast, it is difficult for them to keep up completely. Then there is another option is to stay in the Arctic in the summer, such as Svalbard, the advantage is that there is no need to follow the sea ice, reduce physical consumption, the disadvantage is that there is almost no food on the shore, can not catch up with the reindeer, can not beat the walrus herd, go to the cliff to steal bird eggs The risk is very high and not enough to eat, so staying on the shore seems safe, in fact, it may be a danger of staying for 5 months without food. Summer means more food and breeding season for other Arctic species, but for polar bears, it is the hardest and most dangerous season of the year. And in recent years, the rate of sea ice melting has been faster and faster every year, and in June 2018, the sea ice almost melted to 82 degrees north latitude! But every year is different, and the melting of sea ice in the summer of 2019 is much better than in 2018.
Let's talk about the thick-billed cliff crow, the name is very awkward, and it looks like a skinny version of the penguin. The Thick-billed Cliff Sea Jay is a species of bird in the puffin family with black-and-white plumage, a black back, and a white belly, which is a protective color for typical marine-dwelling birds, with similar plumage between male and female. Their main diet is fish, crustaceans and other marine invertebrates. Although their wings do not appear to be large, they are very good at high-frequency fan-wing flight, can reach speeds of up to 70 km / h, and can dive about 30 meters underwater foraging.
They come to the Arctic every summer in May to breed the next generation, because the summer food is abundant, and the key is that there is no disturbance from modern human civilization. But compared to some other Arctic seabirds, such as Arctic terns, European velvet ducks, etc. breeding and nesting on the Arctic tundra, puffins such as thick-billed cliff crows choose cliffs, because here can greatly avoid the Arctic predators, not polar bears, but Arctic foxes! Therefore, arctic fox tracks can often be found near cliffs with many birds. An interesting adverb of these thick-billed cliff crows is that they lay one egg at a time, but one is large and one small, so that they hatch eggs on the cliff wall without falling eggs due to the rolling of eggs, and are said to be helpful for accelerating hatching by obtaining heat.
Picture interpretation
Looking back at this photo, first of all, the exposure and focus of the photo itself are completely without problems, the picture is clear, this is actually not easy, especially the shady side may be darker, the photographer's rubber boat is still up and down the bumpy state, so it can be seen that the photographer's basic skills are good, and the shooting parameters are also used properly, 1/800 seconds of speed.
Secondly, the photographer used a telephoto lens to capture a part of the cliff, she used a 100-400mm large white lens to shoot, the actual focal end is 275mm, why is this focal end, can it be closer or farther? Here we are going to talk about the composition of the picture. Photography is a subtraction, and all irrelevant things must be removed, but if the relevant content of the story is removed, then wildlife photography has become a headshot, which is completely meaningless. What is a must in this photo? Polar bears, the protagonist should not give in, followed by the victims, that is, thick-billed cliff crows, must also be needed, and what else? It is to explain that this is a cliffy environment, as for the above a few to see the lively Arctic gulls can be ignored.
So the photographer was well aware of this at the time, and when composing the picture, the polar bear was placed in the upper part of the picture, and now it is placed in the upper left corner of the picture in the trichotomy focus position, so that the feeling of going down the cliff can be reflected. Secondly, the photographer chose to explain the concept of the habitat of the entire thick-billed cliff sea crow, so the part of the large thick-billed cliff sea crow was selected below, which not only reflects the large number of thick-billed cliff sea crow habitat, which is also the arctic summer seabird cliff symbol landscape, but also makes the picture very interesting and tasteful, feeling that there is a lot of food below. Of course, another way of thinking, if the shooting conditions at that time allowed, the photographer had such as the 800mm super telephoto end, and could also focus on shooting the scene where the polar bear might try to hunt or steal eggs and the thick-billed cliff crow encountered head-on, but the insufficient place could not explain the location of the story, that is, the cliff tens of meters high.
The third is the choice of photographers, I believe that every photographer will definitely shoot wildly in the face of such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, hundreds of thousands, but how to choose the best photos is aesthetics and the grasp of animal behavior. As mentioned earlier in this scene, it is the inexperienced action of the young polar bear, so the photographer has selected this can be said to be the most embarrassing and funny action of the polar bear among the many photos taken, not going up and down, trapped on the cliff face,
The last thing to say is that the world's endangered species and environmental protection themes have been the focus of wildlife photography competitions in recent years, especially the theme of polar bears and global warming, there have been many successful works before, I have analyzed the animal environment photo of ole, the polar bear is overwhelmed on the sea ice, and there are also winning photos of polar bears walking on an exposed cliff foraging. But this one is definitely better and more rare, because this animal behavior is very difficult to see, and the first reaction of the reader who looks at the photo will be how this polar bear is so funny, you think you are out of the acrobatic troupe? But if you think about it, you can't help but sigh, how tragic it is for a top Arctic predator to risk his life to steal bird eggs on a cliff, such stories and pictures will be remembered by more people, will trigger more thinking, and these thoughts will spread better, so that more people understand the endangerment of this Arctic overlord, and the impact of global warming on animals.
Of course, having said all this, I also hope that everyone will read the photos at the same time, with an optimistic attitude to understand, do not feel that the Arctic is completely helpless, no, this is just the behavior of individual polar bears, just because it is rare, so it will win the award, and most polar bears will choose to go to the ice floes in front of the glacier to hunt seals, or find stranded whale skeletons to eat, or rest to reduce energy consumption. I believe that polar bears that have survived on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years have also experienced the Earth's ice ages and high temperature periods before, they have their own way of survival, in fact, in 2018, the year when the sea ice in Svalbard was the most melted, many polar bears appeared on the coastline of Arctic Greenland, because there is more sea ice here, which is their adaptability. Of course, the fact of global warming needs to be taken seriously by each of us, but don't lose confidence, what we do is meaningful.
Technical parameters
Shooting equipment: canon eos-1ds mark iii + 100-400mm f4-5.6 large white lens, shooting focus end is 275mm
Shooting parameters: f5.6, 1/800 sec., iso 800
This summer we plan to go to the Arctic Svalbard at the end of June to take polar bears and other wildlife on the Rembrandt sailing ship, hoping that the epidemic will end as soon as possible, our trip can be realized, and when the time comes, we will take wonderful photos and share them with everyone. We organize 2-3 charter boats to the North Pole every year for exploration and shooting, interested parties are welcome to consult me.
The above is the content shared by Jerry Shu Huang column - master commentary today. If you have any good suggestions and opinions for this column, or have wonderful wildlife photos at home and abroad that you want Jerry Shu to comment on and share, you can leave a message at any time to contact us