To have an animal be completely relaxed with your presence is the biggest privilege for any wildlife photographer. Usually when polar bears nurse they will try and find a spot where they are covered and hidden from other predators. We never expected her to just nurse right in front of us. This was definitely one of the most magical moments in my photography journey.
As we were watching this mother and her three cubs snuggle up to take shelter from the wind, I already had in mind what I wanted my pictures to look like. At first I didn’t like the branches around her, i though they were disturbing. Only until I switched my mindest and realized i could use the branches to make the picture stand out more. I saw these branches around her and knew that I wanted to use them to kind of frame the picture. I thought that if I would get very lucky and she got up it would be a beautiful image of her and her cubs surrounded with the branches.
But in fact, she did something even more fascinating. She started towering over her cubs, opening her arms to let her cubs feed. One of the most spectacular scenes I have been privileged to witness. To see a mother polar bear nurse is an incredible moment in itself, but to have her nurse right in front of us, looking at us, and her having a set of triplets, made it even more special. I still get goosebumps just thinking about it.