Standing in a place she describes as “bear Eden” on the infamous Katmai Coast of Alaska, Kelly Singleton didn’t realize she was standing between two male bears about to duke it out over a sow. Before she had arrived, her coworkers told her they were sure she was going to get eaten by bears in a place where it had happened before.
“You get out there and sometimes you’re just surrounded by bears,” Singleton says. Up until that point, Singleton, who had lived in Maryland for her entire life, had never even seen a wild bear. “When looking through the lens [of a camera], you’re not grasping how close animals actually are to you,” she says.
Her guide, realizing the viewfinder was restricting Singleton’s gaze as she fired off as many reference photos as she could, reacted for her. “He threw me out of the way so they could go after one another,” she says. “It was a close call.” If only someone could have done the same thing to get Singleton out of her own way years earlier as she was working as a graphic artist, a job she found stifling.
Read the entire article in the July/August 2020 issue.
Last Rays of the Day
Oil
24″ by 36″
“My favorite time to get outdoors is just before sunset. Animals come out to feed, and I love the warm, golden hour light. On one such outing, just as the sun was setting, I was treated to a special red fox sighting. He emerged out of a dense thicket into the most beautiful light where he just posed and posed for me. When he figured I had enough photos, he continued on his way. I imagine he was heading out for the evening to hunt. I swear some animals just want to be painted.”
Parting Glance
Oil
20″ by 16″
“A young Alaskan brown bear turns his head for one last look at a larger, more dominant bear as he climbs a riverbank to avoid confrontation.”
