UPY 2018 Portrait - Runner Up}

UPY 2018 Portrait - Runner Up
'The Nose'
Mike Korostelev

The picture was taken in Kuril Lake ? the place with the highest concentration of bears on our planet. The bears here are not hungry (due to the annual mass spawning of sockeye salmon) so they get used to people and do not feel danger from them.
I used a remote control system with a 10 meter cable. I left the camera in the shallow water in the river next to the path that bears regularly pass and hid 8 meters from the camera. This day my camera was spotted by four cubs, which were walking along the path with their mother. The mother stopped and began to look out for the fish in the river, and the cubs saw the camera, they were very curious and began to play with it.

Judge's comment: I have to admit that I chickened out with this image. It is without doubt a heart stopping image but I could already hear the whining it would generate that there wasn't sufficient of the frame underwater. As a result, and in hindsight I agree, it would definitely have won with just slightly more underwater.
Peter Rowlands