Harbor Seals, Endicott Arm, Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness – Image 2779

This image of harbor seals resting on an iceberg was shot last August, and is a new edition to the my newly redesigned book on Tracy Arm just released this May. I shot the scene from a slow moving boat with my 500mm F/4 lens cradled on a bunch of towels on top of some life jackets to absorb the vibrations of the boat. When photographing seals, it is often best to stay at a distance using long lenses moving very slowly in a larger boat. Often the seals don’t seem to react with alarm to the larger boats. These guys never jumped off. I have discovered that if the boat stops even at a great distance the seals usually clear out. Approaching seals on icebergs from a small boat like a kayak is often problematic. The small kayak seems to scare the seals more than a large slow moving boat. I am not sure why, but a larger boat might seem like a large iceberg. While, the low in the water kayak represents the space that their predators exist in. Thanks for visiting. Camera body: D700, Lens: Nikkor 500mm f/4/ ISO 1000/ digital capture© Mark Kelley