Upstream

Five species of Pacific Salmon spawn in Chignik Lake, Chignik River and its tributaries. Although numbers vary from year to year, the cumulative total of returning salmon is in the hundreds of thousands. There is a place on the river where at the peak of the run in July, the number of returning fishing splashing through the shallows can be heard from a quarter of a mile distance, like a cascade. The salmon in these shallows in turn attract massive brown bears, crying gulls, piping Bald Eagles, foxes, mink, otters, seals and other wildlife.

I made this photo on July 24, 2020, near the peak of the Chignik’s Sockeye Salmon run at the shallows described above. My primary subject that day had been bears, but as I watched salmon pushing through a piece of flat, shallow water I was struck by the silky quality of their wake. These spawning Sockeyes are a stunningly bright red, but I thought there might be a nicely contrasting, silvery black and white image to be made. (Nikon D850, 600mm f/4 with 2.0 TC, 1/500 at f/8, 1200mm, ISO 800)