Autumn Deer

This time of year is great for photographing wildlife, deer in particular. The main reasons: animals are more focused on fattening up for the winter and mating. Most other concerns like "safety" and "security" go by the wayside. Normally skittish deer that would slink into the shadows at the first sight of a camera wielding human will hang around and stare with curiosity. That is, until the first day of firearms deer hunting season (which begins at sunrise on November 13th this year in Missouri).

Some thoughts on photographing autumn deer:

• Use the longest lens you have: 200mm is good, 300mm is better, 400mm is great
• If you don't have a long lens, use whatever you have. Make a landscape photograph with the deer as an element of interest. Use a medium focal length lens to make an environment photograph of the deer. Not all photos need to be tight "portraits."
• Go where the deer congregate: watering holes, oak trees with lots of acorns, meadows
• Does and yearling fawns will usually be less defensive than bucks. You can approach much closer.
• Approach quietly, but don't try to sneak up on the deer or they might get spooked. I find that if I move slowly, don't make too much eye contact and act like I am just out for a stroll the deer don't get antsy.
• Urban wildlife areas are great for photographing deer since they are accustomed to humans and don't see much (if any) hunting pressure. They are still wild animals, just used to having the occasional human around.

More to come as autumn progresses,

D.


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The interesting things I run across...

I was out last weekend for a trip around the Ozarks and decided to stop at Elephant Rocks State Park to scramble around on the granite dome and perhaps take a few photos. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the clanking and clashing I could hear all the way down in the parking lot turned out to be a group of a dozen fencers from the St. Louis area for an open air sparring session. Interesting. Definitely unexpected, yet interesting. I sat with my dad and watched a few bouts (am I using the correct terminology here?). I must admit the setting was pretty spectacular for a fencing contest; quite a bit more dramatic than a typical city gymnasium. Since it was a warm October Sunday, the crowds at the park were worse than usual and the mid-day light was bad, so we didn't bother with any photos other than a quick cell phone video to share.

D.
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Colorado-Fairplay and Buena Vista

Fairplay, Co.

Just a sprinkling of a few more photos from my Colorado trip this summer.
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Rain, the theme of the trip. Fairplay, Co.

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Surise after a stormy night, Fairplay, Co.

Where we were supposed to camp until the lightning drove us down the mountain. Fairply, Co.

Buena Vista, Co.

D.

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Fall is finally here

Footprints and maple leaves, Millstream Gardens, near Fredericktown, MO

I spent a nice weekend motorcycling around the Ozarks in search of the first signs of fall. This photograph sums up the trip. Looking at this photo gives me a very strong urge to break out the backpack and sleeping bag and hit the trail (any trail) for a few days. It was a whirlwind trip through some favorite places to see how the color was progressing. I'll probably head back to some of these spots again in the next week or two as the chlorophyll continues to dissipate.

I visited Millstream Gardens, Pickle Spring, Johnson's Shut-ins and Elephant Rocks. The problem with trying to cram so many places into basically an evening and the following morning is that you can't get the best light for everything (or even decent light for anything in my case). I was treating this as a scouting run, so I'll give the area the time it deserves on my next trip.

Some nice places to visit for fall color in Missouri:

• Pickle Spring Natural Area (near Farmington)
  
• Millstream Gardens Conservation Area (near Fredericktown)
  
• Johnson's Shut-ins State Park (near Ironton)
  
• Hickory Canyon Natural Area (near Farmington)
• Maple Woods Natural Area (in Gladstone)
  
• Current River (near Eminence)
  
• Wildcat Glades Natural Area (near Joplin)
  

More to come in the following days.

Johnson's Shut-ins, Black River, Reynolds Co. MO

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Colorado-Sand Dunes Part II

My dad and I arrived to a setting sun at the sand dunes after crossing a vast plain of farmland on our motorcycles. We could see the dunes in the distance after descending from a mountain pass, but it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to reach our destination. They loomed large on the horizon yet were deceptively far away. Speeds topped 100mph at times as we raced along deserted farm roads, passing seemingly endless fields of beets, potatoes and barley.



Our haste was rewarded by a nice sunset over the dunes. It is something that was hard to capture in a camera. The way the sun warmed the rim of the dunes for just a moment before slipping into night was beautiful. As mesmerizing as watching the famed green flash over the Florida Keys.



The campground at the park was full, so we were regrettably forced to stay at a private campground called "The Oasis." It was anything but. The roads to this pit of hell were so rough that a small passenger car got stuck. Everyone with the option had their transfer cases firmly locked in 4x4. And my dad and I were on fully-loaded street bikes. We have no business being in a gravel parking lot, and here we were doing some fairly gnarly off-roading on these "roads." The view from the tent in the morning turned out to be worth all the cursing, wailing and gnashing of teeth from the previous night.



Mule deer graze along the road to the dunes. One large male bounded along with me keeping a steady 35mph before suddenly cutting to the right, crossing my lane, skittering on slick hooves over asphalt, and disappearing into the brush. It would have made a beautiful video, panning along with him if I hadn't been so startled by it all. That is why I am not a wildlife photographer.



The sun just peeked over Sangre de Cristo mountains, skimming the dunes in clear morning light. It lasted for all of ninety seconds before being obscured by clouds and the morning's photography was done. We had a nice breakfast at the foot of the dunes along the pretty Medano Creek and watched as kids rode down the hills on snow sleds.

D.


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Castor River Panorama

As the Castor River passes through rural southeast Missouri, it carves a series of very small canyons known as "shut-ins". The shut-ins near tiny Fredericktown is a nice place to photograph. Clear cold rushing water, polished granite and towering pine trees give a nature photographer a lot to work with. The shut-ins here have a very cozy feel. Things are on a large scale, but being in the small canyon gives a sense of intimacy. Rather than searching for a grand vista, you are looking at smaller compositions. Panoramas are not the first thing that may come to mind when thinking "small and intimate" however it can be a good technique for fitting more into the frame than your lens will allow.

The top photo was a stitch of 7 images, but it does not have the super-wide panorama feel. I wanted to use the perspective effect of a 50mm lens, but couldn't fit the whole scene in one frame. So I tried digitally stitching 7 vertical frames together to get both the lens perspective that I wanted as well as the broadness of the scene. I could have backed up several yards, but then I would have had to deal with distracting elements in the foreground and background. Panos do not always have to be the grand sweeping vista.





Here is the attempt at the grand sweeping vista. A 180-degree pano. It really distorts the heck out of the river (which runs straight in this section), but I wanted to play around with how much a 16mm lens would distort at the edges as it was panned across a landscape. In photographs without straight lines, it can be tough to detect the distortion. Throw in a road or river or downed log and it becomes pretty apparent.


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