1702_2316 Pronghorn
A big Pronghorn buck and two does - part of a larger group he seemed to be in charge of - look out over wheat stubble fields near Val Marie. I've been seeing them in this area all winter, a small herd of about 30.
Once - recently - there were more. The horrific winter of 2010-11 produced one major snowfall after another. The bison were fine but pronghorn and deer could not find enough food; many pronghorn retreated south to Montana and North Dakota. They crossed the Missouri River on the ice, but when spring came the extraordinary volume of snowmelt prevented them from swimming back to their calving grounds in Saskatchewan. As a result, the calving season was a disaster. I used to see hundreds of pronghorn in Grasslands National Park; they're gone now. I continue to hope for a return, but the survivors seem to prefer the farmers' fields closer to town, at least for now.
Photographically, it would seem that with mobile wildlife there isn't much more to it than point and shoot (with a telephoto, usually), but that's far from the case. Here, the challenge was to position myself so they were atop a slight rise, against the sky, rather than in a small depression. In rolling terrain such as we have here, often wildlife will be spotted down low, where the land itself creates a messy background. Success often comes from choosing the right spot to set up - whether on foot or from a vehicle (this shot was made from my car).
I normally wouldn't use a shutter as fast as 1/8000 for animals that are standing still, nor would I need ISO 640 in bright sunshine. ISO 400 at f/8 would have worked fine. As it happened, I was surprised to come over the crest of a hill and find the herd close to the road, and I pulled up in my vehicle and got some quick shots away before making an adjustment. Six or seven minutes earlier, when I got into my car, the sun was still behind morning cloud to the east, and that was why my ISO was set fairly high.
Photographed near Val Marie, Saskatchewan. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2017 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
1702_2316 Pronghorn
A big Pronghorn buck and two does - part of a larger group he seemed to be in charge of - look out over wheat stubble fields near Val Marie. I've been seeing them in this area all winter, a small herd of about 30.
Once - recently - there were more. The horrific winter of 2010-11 produced one major snowfall after another. The bison were fine but pronghorn and deer could not find enough food; many pronghorn retreated south to Montana and North Dakota. They crossed the Missouri River on the ice, but when spring came the extraordinary volume of snowmelt prevented them from swimming back to their calving grounds in Saskatchewan. As a result, the calving season was a disaster. I used to see hundreds of pronghorn in Grasslands National Park; they're gone now. I continue to hope for a return, but the survivors seem to prefer the farmers' fields closer to town, at least for now.
Photographically, it would seem that with mobile wildlife there isn't much more to it than point and shoot (with a telephoto, usually), but that's far from the case. Here, the challenge was to position myself so they were atop a slight rise, against the sky, rather than in a small depression. In rolling terrain such as we have here, often wildlife will be spotted down low, where the land itself creates a messy background. Success often comes from choosing the right spot to set up - whether on foot or from a vehicle (this shot was made from my car).
I normally wouldn't use a shutter as fast as 1/8000 for animals that are standing still, nor would I need ISO 640 in bright sunshine. ISO 400 at f/8 would have worked fine. As it happened, I was surprised to come over the crest of a hill and find the herd close to the road, and I pulled up in my vehicle and got some quick shots away before making an adjustment. Six or seven minutes earlier, when I got into my car, the sun was still behind morning cloud to the east, and that was why my ISO was set fairly high.
Photographed near Val Marie, Saskatchewan. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2017 James R. Page - all rights reserved.