TITLE: My Hero!

Being a mother bear is hard work! The cubs need constant feeding as they need to double in weight every fortnight to have any chance of surviving the winter months. Even if they solve for body weight, multiple other factors mean that bear cub mortality rates are obscenely high. As we tracked this mother bear at Lake Clark National Park, we got some insight into why this could be. Aggressive male bears everywhere and other female bears a-plenty, this mom was always alert and proactively keeping her cubs away from the slightest danger. Yet she did so with great calm, grace and seeming good spirit. So much so that this cub seems to be looking up at her saying ‘Thank you. You are my hero!’

AUTHOR: Preeti and Prashant Chacko (India)

We are Preeti and Prashant Chacko, Indian photo artists. Together, we go by the handle “Composing the Wild”. Our work celebrates nature through the beauty of its wild animals, photographed in timeless black and white. We favour monochrome for its ability to distil emotion and to create a vision of a time past but hopefully never lost.

What inspires us is not just the visual drama of the wild, but the emotion it stirs. Over years of photography, we’ve learned that the images we cherish most are those that express beauty and emotion. Through our lens, we try to portray the grace of the wild and invite viewers to see these beings not as beasts, but as wonders worthy of awe, empathy, and protection.