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Ric Kessler of Ormond Beach, Florida, is a wildlife photographer who loves bears. He recently made a memorable photo of three bear cubs that has been a hit at Florida art shows this year.

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KOKIAK ISLAND, Alaska -- We fly to Anchorage, Alaska, and I make my way to Kodiak Island via an Alaskan Airline flight.

There I meet three other photographers and 225 rolls of film that I have shipped ahead.

I travel light, at least when it comes to clothes. My total luggage is weighed when we meet our floatplane. I have 113 pounds of gear. Only 35 pounds of that is clothing. The balance is camera gear and film.

Our floatplane loads up as we don our headphones to take off from the channel and head southwest to meet a 66-foot trawler. I am 50 and so is the Beaver that is carrying us to our rendezvous with the boat.

Kodiak is packed with tourists, all of whom were there for the fishing. They probably thought it strange that four guys would go off to live on a boat and hike several miles to watch brown bears eat, play and sleep.

The weather was fairly clear so the floatplane trip was scenic and the mountains, glaciers, inlets and islands were breathtaking. We land on the bay and transfer to the boat, our living and eating quarters for the next eight days.

After a brief orientation and safety tour, Captain Chuck and first mate Shilo head out of the bay to open water so we can get to our first destination. We stopped briefly to pick up dinner - large Alaskan crabs from a crab pot.

An hour later we are anchored in an isolated bay that is protected on all sides by mountains and being fed by streams left from snow, glaciers melting and rain fall. Those streams that are large enough have salmon heading upstream and bears feeding and resting by the banks. It is amazing to view the dynamics of the region and the interdependency of life on its environment.

The bears have been feeding on roots and berries since they ended their winter hibernation and now have moved to protein-rich fish.

We spend the next seven days watching and recording images of bears and their lives while catching fish.

As the fish run begins the bear population in the region becomes more dense and on any one day we count 40 bears roaming the stream banks and chasing fish.

This year we were lucky enough to see several mothers with cubs. We saw triplets that were only about four months old and another set of triplets that were a year and four months old. Mom is very protective of the young cubs when a male bear is nearby. Often she would hide them in the grass while she fished. This protects them from the larger males present.

The cubs that were a year older show much more independence and growl and play with one another when mom catches a fish. They are fiercely competitive with one another when it came to the food.

They play at the stream bank and practice chasing fish, although we never saw one enter and catch fish. Even with the independence they are always aware of the whereabouts of mom and she of them.

By this time of year bears that are weaned learn how to fish and try to develop their own special fishing techniques.

One we named Diver because he climbed the bank, three feet above the water, scopes out his fish and dived head first after the fish. About half of the time he is successful.

There was Underwater bear, the one that put his head under the water while standing in the stream. He surveys the fish until he can pounce on one. He catches several fish.

Large older males seem to hold their ground and take charge of an area. Most bears give way to them and allow them to dominate the region. We see one express interest in a mother with young cubs. Mom runs, snarls and chases him until he decides he has better things to accomplish. Often the male bears would dance and play after feasting.

All this bear viewing gave the four of us time to learn more about our equipment, techniques and the region we're visiting.

We are film photographers and discussed the blooming of digital photography.

We agreed that we could not have taken the photographs we shot if we had digital cameras. The download time is too long with digital; where our cameras could shoot at greater than six frames per second. This allowed us to record whole scenarios of up to 36 images at a time, in 6 seconds.

Nikon and Canon brands are represented equally, and we all shot with tripods and Fuji film. The light stayed with us most of the day, so we were able to take advantage of the quality of Provia 100 film.

The lens combinations varied. The upside to Canon is there are more image stabilized lenses available than with Nikon. It probably did notmatter when we're using the 500 mm (about 10 power) lens because it was tripod based.

I returned with 2,200 images and a better understanding of bears and their life cycles.

I have a clearer understanding of regulation in wildlife regions, the politics between state and federal authorities, and the desire to share the plight of the Alaskan brown bears with anyone who cares about natural history.