20101104-0231

Shortly after moving to the Twin Cities in Minnesota I set about exploring the area for photo opportunities. It was hard, photographically speaking, to have moved to another state and having lost all my favorite hotspots that I knew so well. Now I had to research, and experience, new places. I'd heard about photographing big bucks in the Mississippi River bottomlands in the metro so that fall I began roaming the banks of the river trying to find them. 

Early one morning I was back at it meandering along the Mississippi River on a trail that wandered through the woods. The sun was just peeking above the trees across the river with a few rays were straying through the quiet forest when I suddenly realized I wasn't alone. The big buck was close and cautiously regarding me, lit by a golden sunbeam in a gray forest. My first reaction was one of shock. How did I get that close to a buck without seeing him?

For several seconds, maybe a minute, we stood there looking at each other before he went on his way slipping among the trees and sunbeams until out of sight. Then he was gone and I was left standing there  in the forest fixing the moment in memory.

Since then I've photographed many large bucks in many other places, but this particular encounter will always stand out as one of the defining moments in my photo career.

How I Got This Photo

The contrast between the dark forest and the "spotlighted" deer makes determining exposure difficult. I had to expose for the deer, the subject, and not the forest which covers most of the photo. The camera doesn't really know what the subject is and what its exposure should be. As a result, it will tend to try to brighten the photo which will blow out the detail of the deer. As a result, I dialed in a -1.5 f-stop to make the forest dark again and to "darken" down the deer to the appropriate exposure.

To do this one needs to know how the camera will see the scene and not how you see the scene and that requires lots of practice.