I don’t photograph much at home these days; there’s just always something that seems more important at any given time. So in order to scratch the itch I need to go on photo trips – which is fine by me, I like to be underway! A couple of weeks ago I traveled to Sweden for a very particular kind of outing: We wanted to find a photograph wild, unbaited bears.

The thinking goes as follows: Most of the year the bears are EXTREMELY secretive and hard to find, and for a good reason; although Ursus actros is listed as an Appendix IV species all over the EU, the swedes still shoot them for some reason. I can’t really wrap my head around this fact – what’s the use of Appendix IV and the Habitat Directive if the member countries just go ahead and kill the animals anyway?

Anyway, in the autumn the bears a busy getting fat and jolly for their long winter hibernation, and the most effective way of accomplishing that is by eating sugar, LOTS of sugar… in the form of berries. So in the mountains of central-western Sweden one can simply take up position on a high mountain slope and wait for the foraging bears to wander into view below. This was the plan and we were sticking to it! As it turned out the bears had already polished off the berries down on the lower slopes, and we should have been looking UP to the high terrain instead, but we only realised that as the weather turned, and the higher slopes hid behind shrouds of cloud. So we didn’t see any bears, but the days spent up on that mountain weren’t wasted for it – it was great!

Below is a motley mix of images I secured during the trip – most of them with my usual combo of OM1 and OM Systems 300mm f4 with the TC1.4 on it. It is an awesome setup. Do click on the individual images to see them in a full version.