Drama on the Hoof
Welcome back!
Last month started with a bang—or, rather, a clickety-clack of antlers—as I got to witness something I’ve never seen before: a battle of stags. This was extremely exciting for me. I ignored cold fingers and other bits while two bucks pushed each other back and forth across the field for a good 20 minutes or more.
What the heck, Jon? Why are you showing me this blurry picture, in black and white, of all things? Because, dear reader (…ahem…), it was about 45 minutes before dawn, and there was barely any light; also, this is a photography blog, so some of the technical stuff might be interesting to talk about. And third, if I’m honest, you never know what you’ve got until you get home, and I ended up liking the first shots more than I expected, more an impressionistic charcoal drawing than a photograph.
Okay, with those rationale (excuses?) out of the way: as I was hiking, it was light enough to see a doe run off, white tail flagging the rest of her group. Then I heard the clacking, so I pulled out the big lens and began scanning, and immediately saw these two going at it. My first instinct was to drop the shutter speed, and I ended up all the way down to 1/8th of a second…the kind of speed that can almost make walking people disappear into a haze. Above, one buck was pushing the other and I was panning to keep up, hence the foreground and background blur.
Next step was to boost ISO, which introduces more noise into the image, but I’ve become less afraid of that over time as the cameras and post-processing software have improved. This got me to ISO 6400, and 1/15th of a second:
They were stuck in that spot a while, so I was able to effectively freeze the foreground. I was also trying to edge a little closer, when movement caught my eye (the eye not glued to the back of the camera) and I looked up to see this doe very close by:
She stared at me, looking quite regal, then slowly stomped her hoof and kind of snorted, as if to say “You’d better not come any closer: one of these dudes is going to win, and that’s the one I’m taking home!”
Fair enough, m’lady, point taken, I shall refrain from advancing. And thank you for standing stock still for 1/15th of a second! As if she understood I would desist, she scampered off again.
More ISO was needed, and I ended up at ISO 25600 which got me a reasonable 1/125th second shutter speed:
This finally froze a bit of action, and the software cleans it up pretty well, but if I’m honest, I prefer the more impressionistic shots. The lesson being: sometimes limitations are more interesting.
Anyway, after 20 minutes of this, one of them finally ran off, absolutely exhausted, chest heaving and tongue lolling as he gasped for breath. Meanwhile the victor did all he could to look stately, though his whole body was quivering.
I’ll just end this section by noting that, though the light was growing, it was all still before sunrise, and the scene was much darker than it appears. However, as it was a never-before-seen-by-me event, I’m making an exception keeping it “real”.
Moving on from that excitement, the weather turned more typically cold, which made for some clean mornings, and fresh ice trapping fallen leaves:
This one is my favourite:
Since I was at an angle compared to the ice, I ended up focus stacking this. I think I’m getting better at the technical side of it, from controlling the camera to the software. Whether the results are appealing is up to y’all, of course.
I also spent some time on urban walkabouts. I’ll confess it’s sometimes difficult to rationalize going again to a place you’ve been a hundred times, but you never know when something new will present itself, either as above, by the clacking of antlers, or as below, when the sun bursts through a tiny gap in a gloomy sky:
The light lasted only a few seconds, but was such a welcome event. The rest of the walk ended up full of the unexpected, more than I can show here because other shots didn’t work out, but the ones I like are:
We finally got a snow that stayed, the thinnest possible cover with no wind to disturb it, just enough to leave the highlights without obscuring them:
The morning light was very soft, having to fight through a low cloud of dusty snow, giving a somewhat pastel pink tone to any white surfaces:
A few in black and white, because they are more about structure. The first is a duplicate of the above, I prefer the simplification, but I’m told I’m wrong :)
Let’s end with another snowy day, and more deer, though less drama. First, the environment, I enjoy how snow teases out underlying shapes and patterns:
The last is a macro shot, using focus stacking.
While I was exploring the above, I kept flushing the same group of deer. They stayed well away from me, I could only catch glimpses of them across a clearing. However, at one point one of them took a different path, stumbled on some deadfall, and got caught on the other side of a thicket. The remaining two hovered for their companion, letting me get close enough for a few shots. I’ve learned from my friend to just talk to them when you’re close (something I went into much more detail in one of my earliest posts), and sure enough, while regaling them with my technical choices of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, they settled into just watching me. Eventually one of them is clearly wondering if I’d ever STFU :) …then they calmly wandered off:
Not quite the drama of the first outing, but the peace of it was heartwarming. Plus, they look so fuzzy and warm, compared to the doe from only a few weeks earlier.
I’ll end it there. May you also stay fuzzy and warm this holiday season!
Cheers!