Out There
Bear encounters of the close kind
I imagine that photographers in other fields are often faced with ethical dilemmas of when to shoot and when to lay the gear down and either help, look away or take whatever action is appropriate to the situation. Ethical dilemmas of that nature probably don’t often intrude into the landscape photographer’s routine.
For my fortieth birthday, which was not ‘that’ long ago we spent a few weeks in California. I celebrated my birthday atop a still snow splattered Clouds Rest, enjoying some cake and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, although the candles stubbornly refused to ignite. It was divinely peaceful; the cables had not yet been put back up on Half Dome so the area was relatively quiet, we did not see a single person on or around Clouds Rest it was ours for the day. Not a bad gift to celebrate turning forty.
We were camped up at Moraine Dome and the following day was lazy and hazy, a sunny warm afternoon spent doing not a great deal, short walks, pottering about chores and some reading. It was whilst engaged in the latter, propped up in the shade of a large boulder, flicking my way through Steinbeck’s Travels With Charlie that a crisis of conscience occurred. I turned to Sarah sitting to my right to utter some dribble only to notice a large shape looming from around the boulder to her right. Sarah was engrossed in her read, in the meantime bruin and myself looked rather startled at each other for what seemed a goodly while, both equally surprised by the others presence. Sarah finally felt the bears breath I think and sprang in shocked near silence to her feet. I made a dive for the tent intent on picking up the cooking pots with which to make a noise, however, my camera sat handily next to them, so I grabbed that instead. In the meantime Sarah was rather tweely issuing ‘shooing’ noises to the bewildered animal, “go away, shoo…shoo…” it remained rooted to the spot, its beautiful chestnut coat shimmering in the afternoon light. To my wife’s horror I reeled off a few shots before returning for the pans. The ensuing noise did move the bear, it plodded off rather disdainfully down to the river, returning the occasional glance that had the look of ’who’s back yard is this anyway’ written all over it.
I did eventually convince Sarah that had Yosemite’s black bears garnered themselves a more ‘aggressive’ reputation similar to the brown bear or the grizzly, then of course I would have reached for the pots first! Taking pictures of my wife being mauled would I suspect have crossed that moral boundary! My punishment did come however, as the photos were poorly focused and not much use at all. Sarah can be seen in the bottom left of the picture beneath Bunnell Point, continuing her read, ‘in the open’.