Almost

Salmon fishing, from the bear's perspective, is not always as clean as it looks. I had been walking the rivers that morning, moving through the grizzly mazes - the dense channels and brushy corridors along the Alaskan riverbanks where the bears concentrate and the walking requires attention in every direction - before finding a position to watch the fishing. I watched this one charge into the river with full conviction and emerge with wet fur and a salmon just barely beyond the reach of its paws. You can see the fish in the lower frame, the bear's hindquarters still pushing forward in the direction it just came from, the water still deciding what to do about the intrusion.

I made this photograph from behind, which was not my original intention. But the rear view told a story the front view couldn't - the bear fully committed, fully in motion, not yet aware of the outcome. There's a vulnerability in that angle that a face-on shot doesn't give you. You see the effort without the result. You see the almost.

Almost is, in its own way, one of the most honest images in this collection. It doesn't show the triumph - it shows the attempt. The splash, the reach, the moment just before knowing. The salmon is there. The paw is close. What happened next is beside the point. The point is the trying, and everything the trying looks like from behind, in cold Alaskan water, with the whole summer at stake.