I missed it. It was a challenge to follow the moose as she moved across the meadow drifting in and out of clear view. The tangles of branches kept grabbing the focus and I had to keep shifting positions in deep snow to stay alongside her. Eventually she moved so deep into the woods that I had to let her go. I was hoping for something more interesting than just a cow in the snow, but other than a few peek-a-boo poses from scattered clearings I didn’t think I’d gotten any good photos. It was only later in the evening while editing, that I discovered the beautiful abstract pattern created by the branches silhouetted against her dark fur. Even if I had just been watching rather than concentrating on shooting it’s unlikely I would have seen the effect. A perfect example of the power of the still.
Sometimes I learn the hard way. I was positioned on a hillside, shooting elk in this meadow, when I decided have a quick look around the bend of the hill. Well, one bend led to another until I found myself about 50 meters away from where I’d left my camera set up – when I spotted what I thought might be a wolf moving through the tall grass. I raced back, berating myself along the way, and sure enough by the time I returned, what would have been a full frame shot had become much wider and getting more so by the second. It turned out to be a coyote. He was pouncing in and out of view, as he worked his way quickly across the clearing. When he moved onto this little rise, about a hundred meters away, I got my first clear shot at him. A few clicks later he disappeared into the tree line. The distance, morning lighting, and the thick layer of frost gave a painterly quality to the image and I was very pleased with the results. I was pleased as well to have landed the shot at all and, at the same time, learned a valuable lesson; Always take the camera.
There are thousands of sandhill cranes who winter at the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in southern New Mexico. They spend their nights sleeping on the big ponds of the flooded fields and during the day, they feed in the fields that have been cultivated to provide food. They're relatively shy birds and keep their distance from all the park visitors, but their daily routines are fairly predictable. So photographers can stake out along the edges of the ponds and the fields during the "golden hour" of light in the morning and evenings and capture them in all their grace and beauty as they travel past.
