Down pour (elk)

I've been away far to long,I miss seeing all the great images captured by the excellent artist within this forum. I need to not let my life's busy schedule keep me away from here seeing all the great images and hopefully contribute to it! I really loved the pure raw power/emotion in this shot.

Nice to see you back Stacy. This is a great image for sure and is very powerful and nicely photographed. You got pretty close to him to get this nice of an image at 200mm. He must have been pretty pooped out after the rut.ߘ

Yep, he was spent... Good to be back Terry, I have a back log I will slowly post with so I AM not a image over loader lol.

Nice Stacy, very nice! I do miss having Elk about (I spent twenty years in Moscow, ID). Thank you for sharing!

Tracey

Moscow is so beautiful. I love the landscape their, but then again looks like you moved to a equally beautiful place.

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So tired; bedded down because he desperately needs to rest. Yet, due to the primal urge to engage in breeding activity, he can't help but to respond to another bull's distant bugle.

I really like the sagebrush habitat, and I especially like the band of blue sky that spans the top of the frame - that makes the shot! That blue sky, and the dark, distant slope in the top left corner of the frame, do a great job of providing a "sense of place".

You didn't happen to shoot any frames from this same position at a larger aperture, such as f2.8 or f4, did you? If so, I would be curious to see what the background vegetation looks like with a bit more blur.

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I have a quite a few of this guy, I will dig through and see if I can add to that scenario Tom. And a thank you.

What a great image.

Great image. I am planning a trip specifically for elk before it gets to cold. Where is this location shot??

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kcrunchone wrote in post #18206444
I am planning a trip specifically for elk before it gets to cold.

If you are planning a trip just for elk, then it would behoove you to do so at a time when you can get the most interesting images. This would be during their rut, which occurs from approximately September 10th thru September 30th. This is when the elk are breeding, and the bulls are gathering and maintaining harems of cows. This is also when the bulls bugle, and bugling happens to be the activity that you see in Stacy's shot above.

After the rut, the elk are tired and worn out. They stand around looking bored. They bed down a lot, and have their heads down feeding, and often won't look up no matter what you do to try to get their attention. There just aren't really many opportunities to capture compelling elk images at this time of year. If the elk aren't excited or passionate about anything, if they are bored and worn out after a taxing rut, then how can you get photos that truly capture their majesty and splendor? I'm not saying that it is impossible to get great elk images at this time of year, but the odds are very much against you.

I see you live in Queens, NY. I happen to have some information on Elk opportunities that aren't very far from where you live. If you are interested in learning more about these close-to-home opportunities, please send me a PM - I'd be glad to share what I know and send you some images from that venue so that you can get a feel for what it is like there. Perhaps you could even take a scouting trip to this location, so that when the rut rolls around next September, you would be better prepared to shoot, having gained some familiarity with the area.

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Great Shot! I'm like you busy, but just need to get my fat butt out there...