In the 1980's, I received special permission to photograph the highly protected elephant seal colony on San Miguel Island, the westernmost piece of land in the Channel Islands National Park in California. I had to charter a small plane, get permission from the biological researcher on the island (by ship-to-shore radio -- no cell phones in those days), get permission from the fish and wildlife department, and post an insurance bond to protect the government from a lawsuit should I get hurt. I spent 3 days on the island, and on the first day my hand held meter broke. I was shooting medium format film with the Mamiya RZ 67, and it didn't have a built-in meter. The metered pentaprism made the camera too heavy. So, this is where I perfected my skill at reading light with my eyes and brain, and in the end 95% of my exposures were correct. With slide film, the exposure had to be accurate within 1/2 f/stop or else the pictures would be useless. This shot shows two bull elephant seals battling for domination and for the right to mate with a harem of females. You can see blood on both of the combatants that attests to how violent these fights can be. Had this been digital, I would have lightened the shadows. With transparency film, though, this was impossible. I shot this with a 350mm lens (equivalent to a 180mm lens in the full frame digital format), and my settings were unrecorded. Knowing how I used to shoot, though, they would have been 1/250 at f/5.6. The film was Fujichrome Provia 100.
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