Fine Art Landscape Photography of the Pacific Northwest

Field Notes: Botany Bay is a popular coastal area in Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island. I visited the location for the first time last week. It is a beautiful beach with a very well maintained trail system that extends along the coast south of Port Renfrew. You can hike the roughly 40 km trail along the coast and camp overnight at many gorgeous beaches along the way.

This image was made on my first evening as the sun neared the horizon. It was a cloudy day but a small break in the clouds allowed some lovely evening light to illuminate the ocean. After seeing the area, I planned to spend a few days just exploring the beach and making images here.

On the morning of the second day, I strolled down to the beach in a light rain at about 11 am to see what images I could make. Just as I set up my camera, I noticed a large Black Bear feeding at the shoreline about 200 yards to my left. I watched for a while until the bear started moving towards me fairly quickly. I packed up and started to head for the trail which emerged from the forest about 500 yards to my right. As I looked back I saw the bear moving more quickly towards me. I moved faster along the rocks in an attempt to keep my distance. But then, a large black blur flashed across my field of vision just in front of me. I had not been looking ahead much and had just walked right in to the path of another feeding Black Bear. The bear moved in the direction I was traveling and stopped only about 20 yards away from me. Now I was trapped between two feeding bears!

There was no way out. The bear to my left continued to move closer to me and I began to get a little panicky. The only thing I could do was head for the forest. I slowly backed away from the shoreline and just hauled myself off the rocks in to the dense bush beside the beach. It took me a bout 30 minutes of crashing through the soaking wet bush to finally regain the trail and head back to my camper. As soon as I reached my truck, I got inside, found my bear spray and put it in my camera bag!

The rest of the week I was plagued with Black Bears on the beach. Every single time I went to the beach I encountered a bear. On one evening, I thought the bears had left as there were a few other people at the beach making noise and moving along the shoreline. I relaxed a bit, put my camera bag down and moved about 20 yards away to make some images. About 30 seconds later I looked up at my bag and saw a bear standing over it and smelling the contents. It had all my camera gear in it and, of course, the bear spray. I grabbed a stick, stood up and screamed for all I was worth. The bear backed up about 20 yards and just stood watching me yell and slam the stick in to the rocks. Now, my bear spray was between me and the bear. For the first time ever, I began to walk towards a bear. As I moved towards him, he started to get nervous and stood-up. Just as he was about to move I got to my bag and grabbed the spray. I have never left a beach so quickly in my life. I got to the truck, had a beer and started off towards home.

Technical Information: This image was made with a Nikon D800E and a 24-70, f2.8 Nikon lens set at a focal length of 38 mm. I used a 10 stop ND filter and made a single exposure at ISO 100, f8, and 116 seconds. The 116 second exposure was a rough estimate. I wanted to expose for 120 seconds and counted the time off in my head. The camera data shows that I only missed by 4 seconds. At this length of exposure, 4 seconds makes no difference....it's only about 1/15 of a stop!

The image was manipulated in the Photoshop CS6 Raw converter. Contrast was increased but the exposure of the rocks was also increased to eliminate any solid, blocked-up black rocks.