Wild Species

Two Bucks Standing

On this wintery day, I spotted these two Mule Deer hanging out in a farm field adjoining a shelter-belt. They are only medium sized when it comes to big Mule deer, but still, they are very nice looking animals.

I'll let you in on a secret too photographing wildlife, most animals when not being harassed or shot at, will stop and take a look back at you before departing for another place you're not in, and that is the moment you wait for.
These two Muley's had been feeding on a round bale lying in a field, and when they saw me, they began moving away from me, not an appealing photo.
I knew that they would be curious about me, and I was waiting for this exact moment seen in my photo, when they would stop, turn around, and look me over before moving away.
In good wildlife photos, you always want the animal looking at you, and at eye level (lay down if you have to!). Also you want to focus on the eyes, as that is the window to the soul (well at least in people) and you always want the eyes in focus.
In wildlife photography, its allowable to have some of the body slightly out of focus is in the resulting capture, but definitely not the eyes, they must be in focus, or discard the photo, its that simple, and of course that goes without saying in portrait photography as well.

In this photograph, I was fortunate that they turned broadside to me when they stopped, and this made it simple for me to keep each animal in focus with the shallow depth of field I had in play due to the large lens opening (aperture) I chose for my lens setting.

That allowed me to knock the background and the foreground out of focus (good lens "expensive" are tack sharp at all aperture's), making for a more pleasing photograph, not unlike in portrait photography of the human form, where you want good separation from the background, and a pleasing blur to keep the background from being distracting in the photo.

I would have liked more space in front of the Muley on the right, giving him an avenue of escape, but needing to fit both Muley's in the frame with the lens I was using, forced me to run with what I had to work with.
As a rule of thumb, never box the animal in when photographing wildlife, and in particular large animals that are posed such as these two Muley's that you know are moving or about to move forward.
I suppose I could have asked them to bunch up a bit, but then again, I don't speak Muley!


Click on the photo for a closer look.....

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