RUNNER-UP CATEGORY MAMMALS
Jeffrey Kauffman | Shaking Off The Cold

Name: Jeffrey Kauffman
Picture title: Shaking Off The Cold
Category: Mammals
Nationality: USA
Occupation: I am not a full-time photographer. I am self-employed doing commercial refrigeration service work

Technical information
Camera: Sony A1
Lens: Sony 600mm Gm F4
EXIF: 1F4 1/125 ISO64
Accessories: A self-made telescope tripod with a LED-light with reduced performance (no flash!).

Jeffrey Kauffman​ says:

One of the reasons I am so happy this photo won is because the story behind it is very interesting. One of my lifelong dreams was to see Polar Bears in the wild. Last year I set out for Churchill Manitoba in Canada to photograph Polar bears for the first time. I had a very productive trip taking thousands of photos of Polar Bear and Fox. I was very happy with the whole trip. When it came time to leave Churchill, there was a slight problem. A massive blizzard had fallen on Churchill with 30-50 mph winds and freezing temperatures. All flights were canceled that day. Everyone was worrying about what to do, how to get home, connecting flights, etc… Our giudes quickly told us to get in the vehicles because they spotted a bear along the Hudson Bay coast. All worries about missing the flight just vanished. Driving in blizzard conditions we approached the Polar Bear sitting in the snow in front of a sand dune covered with snow. We all got out of the vehicles and started taking photos. The wind was so strong it was impossible to handhold or even use the tripod without having the camera shake! I ended up using the rearview mirror and the body of the truck we were in to keep the camera steady as I pressed myself and the camera against the truck body as hard as I could. I noticed every 10 -15 minutes the bear would rise out of the snow and shake off. I tried different shutter speeds to get the right feel for the photo. I found that a very low shutter speed blurred the fast-moving snow and made the background more uniform.