Thanks everyone for the continued really kind comments!
Tollefsen wrote:
These are beautiful! Did you go with a tour?
Thanks. I did. There's a small company in the UK called Nature's Images that I'd used for a couple of trips before. They do really small group trips to some amazing places and their main photographer is Danny Green who is a lovely guy and has taken many stunning award winning images. Danny has been to Churchill for about 15 years and from what I understand he's the only one running trips there from the UK. He said that a few photographers ran trips from USA and Canada but I don't really have a clue about them because none of that is marketed at me. The local company we used who operated our main transport and tundra buggy was Frontiers North and they were great.
It's an expensive trip because they need to hire out one of the big tundra buggy vehicles that normally carries up to 40 tourists. We had one for 4 days for a group of 11 + Danny. That time was broken up with a couple of days in rented 4x4s (Churchill only has 4 rental vehicles and we had 3 of them!) looking for red fox, arctic fox, owls etc closer to town. Along with being expensive it is a gamble. If you arrive too early then there should be bears but perhaps no snow. If you arrive too late the ice will have formed in Hudson bay and the bears will have left. In truth, I can't really afford to go on such expensive trips where so much hangs in the balance (and my wife joined me too so it was twice as expensive) but seeing wild polar bears and photographing them was just right at the top of my bucket list so I had to go for it.
You can also try and photograph bears in Svalbard where there is epic scenery but bears are much less concentrated and infrequent. Then there's a place called Kaktovic on Barter Island in northern Alaska which I believe can have a great many bears that you photograph from a boat. I believe this is yet more remote and expensive. Churchill is small and you don't feel like you're in an area of mass tourism but you benefit from there being basic tourism. You get an ok bed in a lodge, a cooked breakfast, lovely cookies and soups etc and the hours are pretty forgiving in November so it isn't exhausting.
I would absolutely recommend the experience to anyone interested but do your research and understand that you are in no way guaranteed good conditions and many bears. I'm more than happy to answer any questions about my experience if anyone is curious.
philwaring wrote:
Thanks everyone for the continued really kind comments!
Thanks. I did. There's a small company in the UK called Nature's Images that I'd used for a couple of trips before. They do really small group trips to some amazing places and their main photographer is Danny Green who is a lovely guy and has taken many stunning award winning images. Danny has been to Churchill for about 15 years and from what I understand he's the only one running trips there from the UK. He said that a few photographers ran trips from USA and Canada but I don't really have a clue about them because none of that is marketed at me. The local company we used who operated our main transport and tundra buggy was Frontiers North and they were great.
It's an expensive trip because they need to hire out one of the big tundra buggy vehicles that normally carries up to 40 tourists. We had one for 4 days for a group of 11 + Danny. That time was broken up with a couple of days in rented 4x4s (Churchill only has 4 rental vehicles and we had 3 of them!) looking for red fox, arctic fox, owls etc closer to town. Along with being expensive it is a gamble. If you arrive too early then there should be bears but perhaps no snow. If you arrive too late the ice will have formed in Hudson bay and the bears will have left. In truth, I can't really afford to go on such expensive trips where so much hangs in the balance (and my wife joined me too so it was twice as expensive) but seeing wild polar bears and photographing them was just right at the top of my bucket list so I had to go for it.
You can also try and photograph bears in Svalbard where there is epic scenery but bears are much less concentrated and infrequent. Then there's a place called Kaktovic on Barter Island in northern Alaska which I believe can have a great many bears that you photograph from a boat. I believe this is yet more remote and expensive. Churchill is small and you don't feel like you're in an area of mass tourism but you benefit from there being basic tourism. You get an ok bed in a lodge, a cooked breakfast, lovely cookies and soups etc and the hours are pretty forgiving in November so it isn't exhausting.
I would absolutely recommend the experience to anyone interested but do your research and understand that you are in no way guaranteed good conditions and many bears. I'm more than happy to answer any questions about my experience if anyone is curious.
Thanks Phil for all the information. I will look into the trip! I assume he has a web page or Natures Images. Do they let people from the US on the tours!?!?😜.
Tollefsen wrote:
Thanks Phil for all the information. I will look into the trip! I assume he has a web page or Natures Images. Do they let people from the US on the tours!?!?😜.
He does have a site. I don't want to fall foul of any rules related to perceived advertising on FM but if you search for Nature's Images then you should end up at their site.
I don't want to do him out of any business because I don't have a clue how often they take international clients. I would say that I've enjoyed my trips with them so far because I've had something in common with the other guests and there's a lot of very british banter taking place. I would suggest dropping them an email to ask if they commonly take international guests and if they don't they may well give you some suggestions for North American photographers who run trips.
If you like watching Monty Python or the british version of the Office then you'd probably get on just fine. If neither of those things appeal to you then probably steer well clear!
philwaring wrote:
He does have a site. I don't want to fall foul of any rules related to perceived advertising on FM but if you search for Nature's Images then you should end up at their site.
I don't want to do him out of any business because I don't have a clue how often they take international clients. I would say that I've enjoyed my trips with them so far because I've had something in common with the other guests and there's a lot of very british banter taking place. I would suggest dropping them an email to ask if they commonly take international guests and if they don't they may well give you some suggestions for North American photographers who run trips.
If you like watching Monty Python or the british version of the Office then you'd probably get on just fine. If neither of those things appeal to you then probably steer well clear! ...Show more →
Thanks for all the recent positive comments. I picked a decent canon A3+ inkjet printer yesterday and I've been printing a few of these for myself whilst learning how to tweak photos for printing. One of my favourites was a fairly hefty crop but I'm delighted with how the print looks at 18" x 12".
I'm not sure how many polar bear photos I'll be able to get away with on the walls, especially as my wife will want some of hers up too!
