Photo of the Day

a mother bear and cub swimming in Kurile Lake at the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia
September 9, 2014

Big and Little Dipper

Fortunately for Your Shot member Marco Mattiussi, the bears on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula were busy eating salmon during the week he spent in a small wooden house in the wilderness frontier. “You had to be very careful,” he writes. “It’s a dangerous place to meet a grizzly because they’re not used to humans.”

To get this shot, Mattiussi spent several hours lying on the shore of Kurile Lake during the ascent of salmon. “The little bear seemed to enjoy holding its head under the water. Its mother was very protective. She didn’t lose sight of her cub for even a second.”

Mattiussi’s picture recently appeared in Your Shot’s Daily Dozen.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot. Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

Photograph by Marco Mattiussi, National Geographic Your Shot

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