Showdown

This is a great tension scene-two bulls during the peak of the rut sizing each other up. These may be the same two bulls I caught on camera as they fought later this same morning in this same meadow, it's hard to tell for sure as there were so many elk in this meadow on this particular morning.

The funny thing about the Fall season high in the Colorado Rockies is how some groups of aspens lose their leaves while other stands are in full bright Autumn colors. Just to the left of this scene is a large Aspen stand with every single tree full of leaves. I would have loved to have those colors in this scene but wild animals most often do not cooperate. I will probably work with this image some more to try and bring out the few remaining leaves but I also like the ghost like qualities of the bare aspens.

One other thing about this photo that I wish could have been better is the lighting. As the sun came up the lighting was very dramatic but once it went above the storm clouds I was left with a bit of a bland scene. Well, you get what you get and you do your best.

Big Horn Ewe

Sometimes it's easier than it should be. Capturing a bighorn sheep on camera shouldn't be as easy as driving down the road and looking out the window. 

On my way to St. Elmo for an afternoon photo walk I spotted this ewe out in a field by the road. I pulled over after driving past so as not to spook her and proceeded to take many shots of her moving around the field and eating. With the snow I really wanted an HDR image so towards the end of the shoot I gave a kissing sound to stop her. She stood staring at me long enough to get off three shots.

I do like this image a lot, a good focal point for the eye, some interesting light in the field behind her, and the depth of field, while not as short as I would like, is still shallow enough to make her stand out from the foreground and background. There just isn't enough context here, not enough visual interest to make this print worthy.

Two Fawns

These two fawns kept wrestling and running around and finally stopped to rest long enough for me to capture them.

There's just enough motion blur around the ears and face to show they are still goofing around and I really like the composition and the pastel colors in the background. And of course, who doesn't think fawns are adorable?

Even so, this picture is cropped quite a bit because of a fence on the left and without at least a little more context I couldn't deem it print worthy.