Canada Post is releasing four stamps celebrating the bear species of Canada. The photos were taken by photographers Michelle Valberg and Robert Postma. (Canada Post)

When Canada Post wanted to do a series of stamps on bears they wanted someone who could get up close and personal with them.

Ottawa photographer Michelle Valberg had just the right images for three of the four close up portraits of the bear's faces.

A spirit bear is seen on a new Canada Post stamp as part of a series featuring the bears of Canada. Local photographer Michelle Valberg captured the image. (Canada Post)

She already had photographed the arresting images of a polar bear, American black bear and a Kermode bear when Canada Post reached out.

"If you have that privilege of looking at a bear eye-to-eye, there's something magical that happens," she said on CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning on Thursday. "They have such beautiful features and eyes, each one of them are very different."

The Kermode bear is a black bear that produces a rare white colouring and only exists in coastal British Columbia.

"She had such attitude and grace.… She didn't [react to me]," she said.

A black bear stamp is part of a new Canada Post series featuring bears of Canada. The photo was taken by Michelle Valberg who lives in Ottawa. (Canada Post)

Valberg has been a professional photographer for more than 30 years and is one of two inaugural Canadian Geographic photographers-in-residence.

A polar bear is seen in a new Canada Post stamp that features bears of Canada. The photo was taken by Ottawa wildlife photographer Michelle Valberg. (Canada Post)

The stamps were designed by Andrew Perro and printed by Lowe-Martin.

Robert Postma captured the image of a grizzly bear.

The official first day cover stamps are postmarked in Klemtu, B.C., home of the Tsimshian First Nations — for whom the white-coloured Kermode bears hold special meaning.