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By Virginia Wright
Contributing Writer

The grizzlies were so close that David Murray could smell them.

Huddled on a remote Alaska beach with four tourists and their float plane pilot, Murray had come to see the bears. The bears - 18 in all - had come to fish and clam, and now, to see the people.

A wildlife photographer from Southport, Murray had been around grizzlies before and he wasn’t overly concerned when the bears ambled within sniffing distance. “They were just curious; some of them may have never even seen people before,” he recalled. “Don’t get me wrong, grizzlies are very dangerous animals, but they’re not blood-thirsty; they’re not waiting to charge at you all at once. These guys were there to eat, that’s all.”

As Murray and his fellow adventure-seekers watched, however, the incoming tide and a playful cub conspired to put them in harm’s way. Their little piece of beach became a sandbar, bordered on one side by a salmon stream in which the oblivious yearling frolicked, and on the other by a high grassy bank where his agitated mother had begun to huff and pace.

“I looked at the bush pilot and he looked at me, and we knew we were in trouble,” said Murray. “We stood up and got everyone into a circle; the idea was to look bigger than the bear. The pilot was in front because he was the guide and he had to be, and I was in front because I was never all that bright and I knew I had a good photo opportunity.”

Suddenly the sow charged. Murray seized his opportunity with just 10 feet and a camera lens separating him and 700 pounds of angry bear. The dramatic result, “Pouting Grizzly,” illustrates one of the many challenges of wildlife photography: sometimes a great picture is a matter of timing and luck. In this case, Murray’s luck held out. An instant after he snapped the image, the grizzly came to an abrupt halt as her cub finally responded to her calls and began to climb the bank. Murray escaped with a great photo - and all his limbs intact.

Such challenges, combined with a lifelong passion for the wilderness, are exactly what drew the 49-year-old Murray, away from a successful career in sales and into a highly competitive branch of photography. He recently took time out from packing for his sixth trip to Alaska’s Denali National Park, where he was to spend two weeks photographing the resident wildlife.

Murray traces his love for the outdoors to many years spent playing in the woods around his boyhood home in Massachusetts. As a teenager, he took up photography, developing his own pictures in a darkroom he set up in the basement of his parents’ home. When it came to a career, however, Murray, the oldest of six children, chose a traditional path and followed his father into the office furniture business.

His work for his father and then for others took him to Maine, New Hampshire, and finally back to Maine, where he settled in to raise a family and launch a business of his own. Murray liked sales - it satisfied his need for a challenge - but he didn’t love it, not the way he loved hunting and fishing or the way he loved photography, which he re-discovered on a camping trip to Yosemite National Park 12 years ago. “I came back with a pile of bad pictures,” he said of that adventure, “but it spurred me to get some books and learn.”

Stalking wildlife and taking photographs proved to be an irresistible combination. “I can hunt anything I want year-round and take ‘em home alive,” said Murray, who no longer hunts with a gun because “I have a bond with the animals now that I didn’t have before. Even when I hunted, the part I liked the least was when I shot the animal, but at the time it was the only way I knew to enjoy that contact with wildlife and experience the thrill of the hunt.”

What’s more, he quickly found that the challenges of wildlife photography equal, and if not, surpass those of hunting. Not only does he have to get closer to the animals, but also he has a fraction of a second to get everything right - aperture, shutter speed, focus and composition - if he is to capture them. “With almost any other kind of photography, you have the ability to re-shoot,” he said. “Not here. That’s what wildlife photography is all about. The best you can do is be in the right place at the right time and rely on your expertise as a photographer and a woodsman.”

It wasn’t long before weekends weren’t long enough to accommodate Murray’s growing enthusiasm for nature photography. “And,” he added, “not unlike any expensive habit, I started to get to where I wanted the newer camera, the newer lens. I sat myself down and said, ‘I’m getting out of control with this. What am I going to do?’”

He decided to make the leap and go pro. He drew up a five-year plan to build up his portfolio and reputation while phasing out of his furniture business. An active member of his community, he put his talents to work raising money for the Boothbay Harbor Region High School football team by selling photos of the players. His work caught the attention of two local weeklies, which began running his Focus on Wildlife column. He mustered up the confidence to approach sporting magazines and state and local tourism organizations which, much to his surprise and delight, snapped up his images. Last year, Murray made the big break and began working as a photographer full time.

Though he has photographed some of the country’s most beautiful places - Hawaii, California, Texas and the Smoky Mountains, among them - he is quick to dispel any romantic notions about his pursuit. The expense of his Denali journey, for example, demands that he take advantage of every bit of the Alaskan summer’s 20 hours of daylight and he will shoot nearly 200 rolls of film. Even then, he will be lucky to return with more than a handful of truly outstanding images.

“You spend a lot of time sitting and waiting and swatting mosquitoes,” he said. “It takes a lot of patience and persistence. It’s a combination of knowledge, experience and hard work.”

You can see more of David Murray's work at his website http://www.davidamurray.com