thanks ankimo for your comments, I think youre correct. As you can imagine, photographing grizzlies (lower 48 bears) in the wild can be quite a challenge. Given the chance to get closer, without compromising the bears saftey or my own, I would have done a lot of things different with all those shots. That cub snow shot - in full sunlight - is a fairly deep crop into a 10 mp image. I would have loved to be closer but just could not risk the bears saftey. that kind of contrast at that distance, i'm lucky to have come home with anything even marginally worth looking at.

Thanks for looking and for your comments.

What do you think of these? All three have been published in widely circulated periodicals or calenders, or both. . .