Bronwyn Ellis, Ice Bears - Destination Unknown (ANIMAL & NATURE 2022)

My entry is of polar bears living in and around the archipelago of Svalabard in the high arctic. Through my photographs I want to acknowledge the fragility of the polar bears habitat. My first photo is of a male polar bear walking through deep winter snow. He continually stops to burry his face in the snow as a means to cool down as it is easy for polar bears to become overheated. Life in winter is harsh, but he is a big strong, healthy male. My second photograph is of a mother and her cub traversing the ridgeline in late summer. I chose to convert this image to B&W to simply & emphasise the harshness of the landscape. If you look closely you will see a radio tracking collar on the mother bear. The scientists are only able to track the females as the males necks are too thick. My third image of the male polar bear as he walks across the shore. The passengers look on in awe at the majesty of this animal. He pays them no attention as he continues on his way. The 70-200 mm lens @ 200mm has helped to bring the two subjects closer together. My fourth image is of a female polar bear that has just finished the last morsels of a whale carcass that washed up on the beach over 2 years ago. With the remains of the whale carcass now gone, this female pauses momentarily and in this moment I chose to underexpose, to isolate this bear as she paused to reflect - where to now?

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.