Polar bears move into abandoned Arctic weather station | Hacker News Reader

Polar bears move into abandoned Arctic weather station

theguardian.com

226 pointssofixa47 comments

>And secondly, unfortunately, these animals were traditionally hunted, and so they use these houses as a form of protection from humans.

Based on these incredible photos, I imagine the polar bear meeting went something like, "Look folks, these humans have been hunting us for years. Nothing we've done to try to run away or fight back has worked. I've got an idea that's maybe just crazy enough to work. What if... now hear me out... what if we just try to blend in? I know, I know. It sounds crazy, we're polar bear how are we supposed to blend in with these humans? Well... what if we just nonchalantly move into some of their buildings and hangout all human-like? 'When in Rome' and all that. What have we got to lose? So, what do you say? Can I get a show of paws?"

Original site from the photographer, includes video: https://www.dmitrykokh.com/places#/chukotka/

I'm generally not a fan of photography, but damn, those are some really good photos.

Genuinely curious about this since this is probably the first time I hear about someone who dislikes photos. Since moving pictures also seems out of the question, are you mainly into text?

If I had to guess, it sounds like they just aren’t “into” photography; not that they actively dislike it.

The person said they don't like photography, not photos. My presumption is they don't like the overly "art" aspect of it.

> are you mainly into text

Not at all. :) Well, I'm interested in text, just not just text, but consider myself a visual person.

I should have elaborated, but I am in general just not a fan of photos capturing moments. Whether staged or not, I feel photos are generally just not interesting and don't capture what's "real", so to speak. They capture this one frame of time that really isn't experienced by us in the way it's presented, and so I personally have a hard time finding it interesting or relatable. I highly prefer motion pictures (videos, films, etc.). A particular example that comes to mind is the tank man in the famous Tiananmen Square photo. The video is so much more powerful and meaningful to me. (However in this case, maybe my point is diluted because that photo is indeed a rather powerful one.)

There's a Portlandia skit that also captures a part of what I mean, where Fred and a girlfriend go on this European vacation that was miserable, nothing happened, and they ended up breaking up, but their pictures on Instagram (or something) looked amazing and seemed to capture the time of their life.

Another example are photographs of James Turrell's work. While photographs are indeed interesting, they simply do not capture what it's like to experience his works in person. I do like manipulated photographs though, such as the "drone painting" by Reuben Wu (https://www.instagram.com/itsreuben/).

I think photography kind of stands in this uninteresting arena (for me!) between other static art (e.g., paintings, computer-generated art, etc.) and motion art. Also, it seems everyone and their dog is a photographer now, so that can be a bit of a turn off as well, for better or worse on my part.

Then again, I probably contradict myself on this stance from time to time.

The Gabby Petito story, or for that matter, numerous commercial / Hollywood film production which were disasters on the set but produced classic or much-loved films, suggest that even video may well fail to capture or distort the true essence of a situation.

Narrative tools can be used to project truths or fictions. Which they do is rather at the mercy of the author / creator, editor, and often audience and/or reviewers. The latter becomes clear where the reception to a work changes long after it has been completed, through changing contexts.

That a photograph is a capture of a specific interval of light, with framing and exposure, does mean that an individual image can distort or project a false narrative in ways that might be more difficult with a longer and more contextually-grounded set of registrations. But there are plenty of examples of manipulation in video as well. Framing, context, juxtaposition, the Kuleshov effect, ... Auteurs know and use these.

Largely: you've got find a trustworthy narrator.

>> I hear about someone who dislikes photos.

Photos and photography are two different things. I personally have no problem with photos. I do have a problem with some types of photography.

And here's a video from the island, from the same photographer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHyUieKqoU

Can't get much cuter than that

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ec06f22938d8b9946977dc3ee7580...

Calls to mind:

“He had the quality of being simultaneously frightening and cuddly, which is rare and rather wonderful.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jan/21/meat-loaf-bat-...

tempted to make this my new desktop background :)

I looked at the photos first, in awe of the photographer's bravery. Then I read the article and it made more sense; technology is neat!

Those houses must smell awful by now! I doubt the bears are litter box trained.

I imagine once they start a "bathroom" room it would go downhill, but I don't know polar bear relief psychology

Don't know what to cite, but I'm pretty sure it is a basic instinct to animals that settle in a regular shelter NOT to shit where they live (at least regularly)

It’s common knowledge that they go in the woods.

That must be why polar bears are so grumpy. Not a lot of woods in the arctic circle!

Telescopic lens could have achieved even a better result, if there is direct line of sight.

Not if he wanted to preserve the wide-angle perspective, which imo is extremely important for this subject matter.

Not from a boat

The excerpt for how the photographer captured the photos: "It was too dangerous to land on the island that day, so I took pictures from a drone equipped with special low-noise propellers. I also used certain tricks of the trade that allowed me to shoot the animals without disturbing them. After a while, the bears practically ignored the unusual buzzing."

From my extensive knows of the subject - based entirely only watching nature shows on TV - photographers in such situations have an experienced hunter with a rife beside them.

Drones are a bit more effective nowadays. Far less cost and danger associated with the entire operation. It's usually about outcomes not adventure.

I'm not sure if you've ever been around a drone but the sound they make is god aweful and impossible to avoid with the amount of RPMs they have to make.

For skittish animals, drones are still a no-go

As stated in the article, he used low-noise propellers, and eventually the bears just ignored him. If he's using a modern drone, it probably has a zoom lens on it.

I've filmed a black bear and her cub with my DJI Mavic 2 Zoom, and never really came closer than 60 metres or so away from them. They didn't even notice the drone. I used low-noise props that change the pitch of the sound as well. Here's my video (I'm an amateur!) from a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyEPvcLOTUk

However, if you check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHyUieKqoU you'll see some video from the author/photographer of these Polar bears. And at one point the bear is heading directly for the drone. I'm sure his curiosity would result in a swatting of the drone if the pilot didn't move back as he approached. I think he's closer than I would dare, but I don't know what equipment he's using.

There was a bit in the making of the bbc show planet earth where the photographers were confronted by a ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ at their front door which is a very good example of a measured response.

found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mODlsphGbLw

PBS has a couple of series on wildlife photography technology (on Wed evenings before NOVA).

One series uses attachable cameras optimized for land-sea-air creatures.

Another series puts cameras inside of robo-creatures of the target species.

Biologists learn lots of new things.

The site won't let me scroll, I'm guessing because either uBlock or Privacy Badger blocked a script. Oh well, I'll just look at the cover photo.

I run both and it worked for me (Chrome 97 on Windows).

So what are those 'trick of the trade' and what makes a drone propeller quieter?

Probably some of the commercial low-noise props. Different shape, that tend to lower the both the pitch and volume of the drone noise.

I use these: https://www.masterairscrew.com/products/dji-mavic-2-stealth-...

But there are others.

The tradeoff is they don't handle wind very well. If you look at the author's video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHyUieKqoU you can see they're not really super stable. I assume there was a cross-wind.

The other trick of the trade is just to use a drone with a zoom lens, and stay far away from the bears.

I'm an amateur, but this is as close as I would dare get to a bear and her cub a couple of years ago. I was about 60 metres away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyEPvcLOTUk

The first photo looks fake to me. Does anybody know why? Looks like a painting.

HDR effects?

The article explains they were taken from a drone, the video [1] shows that it was a very foggy day.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHyUieKqoU

Very foggy day, HDR, extracted frames from video.

With the fog, there's less light hitting the sensor, so the camera's going to capture noisier images. Most cameras will automatically apply noise reduction algorithms, and additional noise reduction can be done in Lightroom/Photoshop - when applied liberally, this can result in an appearance that almost looks like an oil painting, as clusters of similarly colored areas are smeared together.

Gotta order from Deliveroo and watch some Netflix.

  >But life is eternal. These bears will continue to hunt, swim among ice floes and explore islands even when civilization ceases to exist. But life will remain eternal only if we humans finally begin to take care of the planet and the living creatures that need our protection

Awesome photos, but the writing...

Yeah, this sentence is both verbal and logical soup.

This is some pretty bad word gore. I find it a common misconception, though - _life_ will be perfectly fine, barring our Sun going supernova. It's just a matter of what form it will take after the nuclear holocaust/machine plague/etc. What this author and most other people are actually saying is that _human life_ will only remain eternal if we take care of our ecosystem.

> _life_ will be perfectly fine, barring our Sun going supernova.

I'm pretty sure a completely f-ed up climate or a full-on nuclear war will be quite a problem for live. The planet will be fine and some liveform will probably remain, but it will still put quite a damper on live overall.

Again, that was my point. Life will be fine. The point is that we should be responsible stewards and caretakers of our ecosystem, because the moral consequences of wanton destruction of something so precious and beautiful would be beyond comprehension.

With that said, no mater what we do, short of causing our sun to go supernova or collapse into a massive black hole, life in some form on Earth will be fine. Perhaps it would even recover after a few billion years and produce another intelligent species that wouldn't end up wrecking the place.

> Perhaps it would even recover after a few billion years and produce another intelligent species that wouldn't end up wrecking the place.

I have some bad news for you about the carbonate-silicate cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

> Again, that was my point. Life will be fine.

Well, some humans sit in bunkers built to withstand direct hits with a nuke and others built self-sustaining ecosystems. A massive catastrophe might wipe out 99+% percent of humans, but a small few will most likely survive in basically all cases. That makes humans far from fine. In a similar vein, I disagree that wiping of most of life from earth can be summarized as life being perfectly fine.

But it's really just a minor technicality, I agree with your overall point that we should be more specific about ruining the planet _for us_.

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