Welcome back everyone!  I hope you’ve enjoyed this series on black bears.  The experience of photographing these amazing animals alongside my friends was a once in a lifetime thing, which I know I won’t soon forget.  I hope I’ve conveyed through my images some of that experience, but am certain, you’d really have to be there and experience it first hand to truly appreciate it all.

I wanted to wrap up this series with a collection of portraits I took.  I mentioned last week having a mental “shot list” of all the images I wanted to come away with, and at the very top of that list was a nice portrait.  What I would ask of you, the viewer, is to not thumb through these quickly, but to take a minute and look into their eyes.  If you’re from East Tennessee or somewhere else where bears are common, perhaps you – like me – have gotten used to the sight of them.  What I would invite you to do now is take a closer look.  Being around these animals for the better part of 4 days afforded me the opportunity to learn about them, and be continually impressed by them.  It was the moments like the ones captured here in these images, however, that really struck me.  When I looked into their eyes through my lens, and they looked back, it was a surreal experience of mutual awareness.  Both of us knew the pecking order very quickly, yet both of us chose in that moment to just exist.  I, of course, have no idea what was going through the bear’s head – but I certainly know what was going through mine!

More next week!

–Dan Thompson