Insider Tip. Listen for Bull Elk Fights

Everyone imagines that bull elk fights are something you just run into. The truth is if you are paying attention, you can hear bulls getting ready to fight long before they lock up.

Here is the setup:

1. You hear lots of loud bugling. Usually all the noise is from the herd bull who is attempting to warn off the challenger bull who he knows is nearby. Bugling becomes more frequent, and if you listen closely you can hear the two animals trading bugles, I call this "Counter-Bugling"

2. Counter-Bugling will get pretty intense. You can hear the bugles getting raspy and growly and deeper, less melodic. Sometimes the bulls are right next to each other bugling in each other's face. The herd bull will now be in a rage, and you can tell easily. I have seen the herd bull froth at the mouth at this stage.  

If you hear this kind of bugling get to the location it is coming from. The stage is set for a bull fight. Usually you will find the bulls facing off when the noise starts toning down. Then there is a transition to the bull fight.  They may lock up right away, if they do you can hear them for quite a distance. In Boxley Valley this can be well over a half mile. 

I listen in 2 ways, generally when I drive the valley I have my radio turned off and the windows rolled down. I both look and listen intently in placed where I pull off. I am listening carefully to the bugling as above, and for the clatter of antlers. When I stop and shoot I continue to listen carefully. I always move to counter-bugling, especially if it is raspy.

This is the first engagement in a bull fight, I call it the "run along"
Note the herd bull is bugling angrily. From here they will face off
and lock up.  This is from 2008.  

When you are working elk use all your senses. A lot of conversation will result in missed opportunities. You are a hunter, not a visitor to a zoo. Stay alert. 

River Otter Guide

Recently river otter activity has picked up at the Ponca Low Water Bridge. The otter seem most active mid morning around 9:30 to 10:00 AM. There are 2 different otter families, one with last year's litter, a second with tiny babies, clearly this year's litter. The key to locating the river otter is to be patient and carefully watch the left pool just below low water bridge. When the otter are feeding, often there are ripples that can't be explained, and river weeds will move as the animals forage along the bottom. Sometimes you will see an otter upside down in the pool with its tail poking straight up out of the water as it digs through rocks on the bottom.

One of the best traits of otter are that they are not timid around people. They might swim up to you to get a better look at you, often when they are swimming away, they will pause and look back in shallow areas (see photo below).

Otter are a fast moving subject and a bit unpredictable. This is handheld shooting and my 100-400mm zoom lens seems ideal. Stabilization and a fast shutter speed are important.  I usually shoot ISO 2000 and wide open. Because they are a dark subject, I will overexpose to get texture in their shiny wet fur.  When you visit the valley to see the elk, you must stop and check for otter.  If you see them, stop and shoot a while, you may never see them again.

River Otter Buffalo National River pausing to look back. 

Butterfly Photography is in Prime Time -- The Mating Dance

Real happy with this photo. Our road, Old Erbie Road is lined with wildflowers now. These milkweeds drive the butterflies wild. I got this by waiting and watching. I am convinced the best way to get good butterfly pictures is to post yourself near a few pre-selected flowers and let the butterflies come to you. 

I much prefer to shoot butterflies in flight. When I get 2 at once it makes my day. This was shot 1/3,200 of a second at f 10, 400 mm, ISO 2,000, hand held. 

Dogwood Bough at Sunset

The dogwood season is now just past peak. There are plenty of great trees left, but the early bloomers are now declining by the day.

I shot this on my trek out back to a pileated woodpecker nest. Like so may other photos, I go out for one thing, and get another. Think about chasing the angular light at the ends of the day.  I am real happy with this dogwood image, but like most every image, it is something given more than something taken.

Dogwood at Sunset in Cross Light

Rue Anemone at Sunrise, Ponca Wilderness

Rue Anemone at Sunrise, Ponca Wilderness

In my mind, nothing matters as much as selective lighting and dynamic range in composition. This Rue Anemone is cross lit and top lit. The selective lighting of the flower is in contrast to the other parts of the setting pops it out of the background.

I like this 3D effect, and I seek it in my wildflower work. This is my preferred "voice". If I live long enough I hope to paint now and then. This would be pretty close to what I would go for.

I took at least 20 pictures of this same flower. My friend Paul Caldwell calls this "working a subject". Try different angles, different points of view. Up light and down light. NEVER stop at the first photo -- study, move, look at the background and bokeh.  Give yourself choices for your post processing.

As is often the case, the tie breaker was the curvilinear branch at the background, the foreground detritus, and the glow of the flowers in mixed light. I think these compositions are more interesting than normally lit photos, and way more interesting than flash. I might hang this one because there are so many aspects that I like. Something more straight ahead would bore me.

Hepatica in Filtered Light

Hepatica in Filtered Light

This is one of the things I look for in taking wildflower pictures. To me light dynamics are everything. This is a cinematic light photo.

In this composition there are interesting lines and negative implied shapes that create a wholly different concept of a natural frame.

The ribs on the leaves surrounding the bloom point to it. Leaves at the bottom point right, intersect the leaves about it, and form an interesting zig zag pattern leading the eye to the bloom.

This photo is something given, not something taken. One only needs to first observe and work slowly.

Photographing Trumpeter Swans in Boxley Valley, Touchdown Trumpeter Swan

Patterning trumpeter takeoffs and landings on the Boxley Mill Pond is pretty easy. When they are ready to take off they act nervous and don't feed much. You will notice they bob their heads and do a little honking, often pretty faint, but audible. Suddenly the takeoff happens and they skitter across the water and they are off. They will fly around the valley for a few minutes before landing back at the pond. You have time to prepare -- use it.

The great thing in Boxley Valley is that the trumpeters return after takeoff. This morning I shot the takeoff in kind of dim light as the sun was rising. I knew from experience the trumpeters would fly the length of the valley and land back at the mill pond, typically in 5 minutes or so. There are 2 narrow strips where the trumpeters might land. I chose the one that was just lighting up from the sunrise, guessing that they might prefer it to the still dark portion of the pond. It turned out to be the correct choice.

Touchdown Trumpeter Swan, Boxley Mill Pond

A couple of tips. First, observe. Pay attention and think about what you see. Getting the above photo was based first on a way of thinking. Don't necessarily adopt my thinking, adopt my habit of thinking and concentration during a shoot. I want you to find your own patterns, your own approach.

Second tip. These guys are moving fast when then land. When you scope out your anticipated landing spot, do some pre-focusing testing, think about the landscape behind the subject. Choose your angle for the shot to setup the background to complement your composition.  Your composition is both the subject and its context. This photo would be pretty good if it were only the swan. I think it is much better with the brush along the pond illuminated by the sunrise, and added to the composition. This strategy of placing the subject in context could be the difference between a "wall hanger" and just a pretty good photo.

Third tip. I try to shoot these shots at f8 or more to add depth of field, especially when the subject is approaching me as in this photo almost straight on.  It provides a margin of error for good focus. I also pre-focus and let the swan fly into the focus. To get to this aperture, and still have a decent shutter speed I shot this at ISO 2000 and 1/1580th of a second. In reasonably bright light the noise is not too bad.

I hand-held the entire shoot. At this shutter speed hand holding my camera is a non-issue. In many ways, hand-holding the camera allows me to make the quick adjustments needed to get the shot in wildlife photography.

Herd Bull "Chaos" by Beech Creek

This morning a new herd popped out from the outback. This second tier bull is one I call "Chaos". He is atypical x 3, absolutely the oddest rack I have ever seen. In this picture he is "nose up" preparing to turn the cow in the foreground to the right. This is an absolutely standard rut move -- herd compaction. I doubt there is more than one cow in his harem that is estrous, if that. Note the mud on his rack --  another marker of his rutting behavior.

So what is going on now? We are at the very end of the rut. The big bulls are gone, and the second tier bulls have taken over. This is in keeping with the very end of the rut. There will be some breeding that goes on, but this is the very end of it all. Calves sired in this period arrive in August.

What Lies Ahead
Great elk viewing and photography is far from over. Bull elk retain their antlers until the end of March. All-bull and all-cow elk herds will be very visible in the winter and often all day, although I prefer morning and evening photography.

Many of my very best pictures are from this period. The very first elk crossing I ever shot standing on the Ponca low water bridge was shot on December 28 and it made the cover of the state elk brochure. What I am saying is don't dismiss the period from now until the end of March, it can be amazing.

Herd Bull "Chaos" at Sunrise by Beech Creek

Grazing by 43/21 Intersection -- Compos With 2 Elk

Compositions with 2 elk can be hard to get to look right. One strategy is to overlap the elk to kind of convert the picture to "2 gets you 1 subject". In this case, the biggest elk, Box is in the foreground, the smaller behind is behind him mostly, and mostly in the shadows.

Morning light cutting across the bodies of these animals animates their contours. I cropped this to a vertical 12x8 so that the tree would participate in the compo more effectively -- it reinforces the lines. It is pushed back, so the traditional rule concerned about it growing out of the elk has no meaning. In fact, in this case, it seems to point the elk. If I had cropped to 10x8, I don't think it would be as effective.

Make 2 Elk into 1 Subject by Association

Bull Elk Herd by 43/21

Bull elk herd at 43/21 field. I chose this image because "Box" was looking at the other elk with the shag grazing. The eye contact between animals that happens now and then matters a lot. Viewers read human emotion into these moments. In the background you can see the mill pond lit up by blue light from the sky.

I had the place to myself. When I left about 9:30 the bulls were still in about this position. To get this compo, I stayed south of the herd so that my shooting angle took in the mill pond. I could have got a lot closer, but then the background would have been a farm field.

All-bull Post Rut Herd by 43/21

Why Not Black and White?

Days like today are great for working on your ideas and learning some new things. I took the river crossing image into my preferred  BW plugin and played around with it.

I applied a red filter to bring up the deer. Took the tree trunk and roots behind the deer down darker so the deer would pop out a bit. I lightened up the deer still more. I burned down the foreground water, again to lighten up the deer.  No formula, just eyeballing the end result.

Why not play with black and white?  It will teach you about how to work with darkness and lightness in the same composition. What you learn in black and white readily translates to your color post processing.  In some ways you might find experimenting with only black and white will help you better manipulate color values. There is the chance you will get hooked on black and white, not a bad problem to have. Whatever makes your photography enjoyable is what matters.

Whitetails Crossing at Ponca Low Water Bridge BW

Making Photo Cropping Choices

There are actually people who think cropping photos is a sin against photography. Seriously? Isn't the point of photography visual expression? Cropping is a fundamental tool. There are a lot of rules created about photography, especially by those who can't figure out composition and visual expression.

The picture below is a crop of the one I posted previously. I don't think it is better or worse, just different. There is no reason to prefer one over the other. I did lighten up the the photo a bit and saturate it slightly. If I were printing this I would spend more time fussing over it.

Note that there is "negative space" in front of the lead deer to the left. That is very deliberate. It is a pretty standard composition strategy to leave space in front of the direction of movement.

This photo is also cropped vertically. I try to place a linear subject along the 3rd lines. Also there is the two tree trunks with roots on the right. I will generally place the vertex of the intersecting 3rd lines between 2 elements that are participating in the composition. These 2 trunks meet that criterion.  Note also, there is not only movement right to left, these trees and roots reinforce the right-to-left sensibility of the composition.

Are these cropping ideas rules? Nope, they are suggested starting points, ways of thinking. If you think differently that pleases me. My concern is that you think about what you do, not whether you agree with me.

The final crop came in at 288 dpi. That is good enough for a pretty good sized print, bigger than most people might want. Might be fun to hack this around in black and white.

Whitetails Crossing the Buffalo (Crop)

Godzilla Steering His Herd

Bull elk steer their harems away from danger. This was taken a bit later when Godzilla had had enough of me and it was time to move his herd.

Compositions usually have negative space in front of a moving subject, in this case it is behind. This is because in these steering movements, the bull pivots toward the last cow as he walks back and forth moving them toward the tree line in this case.

Herd Bull Turning His Harem

Getting Good Photos on "Off Days", Composition

Pretty sure this is "Hammers", the shag bull. He was grazing around the bridge at Moore Creek this morning and he gave up a lot of shots in crossing light. 

If I didn't tell you, you would not know this is a roadside shot, it is a crop. This composition uses negative space in the direction that the bull is looking -- a pretty standard composition strategy. It creates interest, much more than a centered shot. 

Also, this was taken on a day when there were few elk. The day was carried by roadside bulls, small ones like Hammers, and a medium sized bull in the other picture I posted today. Today paled compared to yesterday with JYD. There were still plenty of elk pictures to get. 

Sunrise Light and a Crop Carries this Compo

The Boxley Stud and a Shag December 18 Last Year

The best bull pictures are ahead from now until the end of March. This picture is from last year on December 18, over a month from now. As I have said a few times before, the best bull elk photography is ahead. If you want big bull pictures, it is easier after the rut starts winding down.

This particular shoot was one of my memorable ones, the kind of days you don't forget. Great light, great bull, and plenty of chances. The frost made getting details in his neck easy. I had the place to myself.

Remember this. The bull elk don't drop their antlers until around April 1. If you are serious about wanting some amazing elk shots we are now entering the very best time of the year. This will be when you get your trophy shots.

The Legendary Boxley Stud Bull Elk (and Shag Elk)

Tips for Elk River Shots & Crossings

Setting up for river shots is pretty simple, but one must be mindful that it is roughly like swinging for home runs -- you will strike out a lot, BUT when you connect with a river shot, you are hooked for life.

The photographer below was heading to one such sitting spot. He was hoping to get elk drinking at the river on the opposite bank. The formula for this is simple. Locate the field where the elk are, get behind them (or beside them) and wait. The will come to the river to drink, and they might cross too if it is possible (or not).

Going for an Elk River Shot

Fall color reflections can easily be brought into these photos. The key here is to locate a great river reflection and locate the elk trail that crosses it. Elk trails are easy to find. Good landscape compos are pretty easy to make. Bring the two together, add elk, and you have it.

Elk River Shots With Fall Reflections Can Be Dramatic

The crossing shot below puts an even finer point on the composition. This elk is cross lit by sunrise light cutting right down the trail toward him. This shot kind of looks impossible, but really it is about time of day, pre-visualization, and moving elk. If there are reflecting pools they add a lot.  

TIP: One thing that makes these photos much easier is that the herd bull is nearly always last when herd moves.  This give you plenty of time to think through your composition, exposure and timing.  You set these up with the cows that precede the bull. In this way, this is nothing like a snap shot, it can be very well planned. In the shot below, at least 20 cows that preceded this bull. They made it easy to get this shot and help me plan the final compo.

Think About Painting with Cutting Light -- Get Creative

November 2013 Outlook

The weather forecast in early November is a return to seasonably cool days and pretty cold nights. Steaming breath bugles like the one below are possible in this weather.  As I write this we are at peak fall color so visiting photographers will have plenty of subjects to shoot. 

We are still in the 2013 elk rut slowly heading down the slope to the holidays. There will still be bulging for some time and bull fights are possible until mid-month, though they become less likely as the month progresses. 

I have said this many times. A huge percentage of my best bull elk shots are from now until March. There will be bulls "running" herds until the end of December. 

As the rut winds down, all-cow and all-bull herds are formed.  These herds mix with the herds that are still in the rut pattern, but finally there are only gender based herds. 

"Steam This" -- One of my Favorite Pictures

The all-bull herds are generally organized by the size of the bulls.  There are 3 sizes as a rule, the biggest bulls, the second tier bulls, and the little bulls. There is a little mixing but this breakdown holds. They still spar from time to time and these are good pictures.  Don't dismiss this opportunity.

Medium Sized Bull Herd January 2012

Below is a picture I got of the Boxley Stud on November 13 last year.  One fine bull. I did not get a decent picture of him last year until late season.

The Boxley Stud November 2012 by Moore Creek

We are now entering prime time for elk photography. Some imagine that the best is behind, but the best is ahead. If you like big bulls this is the best time of the year to get the wall hangers.

Morning Sparring in Fog, 12/2/13

2 middle sized bulls spent some time sparring today down by 43/21 intersection in some pretty thick fog.  A lot of people filmed these guys.

I have taken a lot of sparring and fighting pictures.  I think getting at least one set of eyes in the picture matters a lot.  There are exceptions with great movement, meaning big twists and turns.  These guys did a little of that.

Second Tier Bull Elk Sparring in the Morning Fog

Think About Landscape Elk Shots, Tell a Story

I think the best wildlife photos seem to express the emotion of animals.  This bull elk is crossing the Hailstone after a night of grazing.  He is in no hurry and seems to be reflecting.  My point is that bull photos can be more than just muscular, they can express a broad range of emotions.  

Maybe expressing this is best done in more of a landscape approach like the photo below.  This perspective places the bull in a broader context, and in that context we interpret his gaze and posture differently. We see what he is focused on, and that he is alone.  A more conventional tight shot would not give us the rest of the story.  This is more of a painting.  

Shoot Elk in Landscape Compositions to Tell a Story 

Steamer Season -- Cold Weather is Start of Steamer Season

I have been shooting elk for a long time now and "steamers" are one of my favorite photo strategies to add something to kind of ordinary compositions. "Steamers" will be possible on early morning shots beginning this week. The obvious first choice is a bull elk bugling, but there are many other choices as below from my archives. I added the shot locations.

Satellite Bull Looking at Harem (43/21 Area)

Backlit Bull Walking and Bugling (Ponca Field)

Bull Breathing Heavy Over a Cow (Ponca Field)

Shag Elk Just Bounding Around (Lost Valley)

Big Bull Just Breathing in Frost (Lost Valley)