SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Seattle photographer comes face to face with a polar bear
Nov 4, 2012, 3:32 PM | Updated: 6:47 pm
Seattle photographer Paul Souders captures an adult polar bear up close in Hudson Bay in Churchill, Canada. (Photo courtesy Barcroft Media)
(Photo courtesy Barcroft Media)
A wildlife photographer, who lives in Ballard, has taken thousands of stunning shots. None put him on “a razor’s edge” more than a series of photos swimming with a polar bear.
Paul Souders worked for two weeks to get close enough to a polar bear in the waters off Churchhill, Canada.
Though not a 10-foot pole, he used a remote camera on a seven-foot pole with special underwater housing to capture his shots.
“I didn’t feel threatened, but I knew that I was on a razor’s edge. I had no margin for error,” he told the Daily Mail.
Souders says waiting for the right opportunity involved “hour after hour staring at the ice trying to find that white figure against the snow white background” from the comfort of an 11-foot inflatable boat.
“It was worth it when you get such an encounter as I did,” he says.
By LINDA THOMAS
Check out Paul Souders’ website World Foto
