I think this buck was making a statement about what He thinks about hunting season.
This is a big boy with big wide beams . A mule deer’s ears are about 22 inches across….. 😲 His antlers were still in velvet late summer for this shot. The “Velvet” Skin over the growing antler supplies the antler with blood supply, then they shed it in a few days of rubbing it off on anything around they can rub it on.
He’s a fighter, got a notch in his ear from a battle…
It was still pretty green back then, mid-80’s, no snow in the hollows as now lol. Ah for the good and bad points of summer. Remember allergies?….
Location: Somewhere within 10 miles of the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch. (That narrows it down)😜
Which Way is he Looking, This Buck Silhouette is confusing to me as to which way he is looking. Is he looking away or toward the camera? Don’t confuse grass highlight for body contours now lol. This one is a real mind bender. I know which way and MIGHT tell 😎
Getting a nice buck between yourself and a good sunrise? Priceless.❤️
The illusion is caused by the telephoto’s ability to destroy perspective. This is a very long shot, the deer looks HUGE…BUT the sun that would be currently rising behind the hill is way bigger than he is in apparent size.
If I had a 10 foot ladder to get up on from where I was standing for this capture….there would be a rising sun behind deer shot….The topography prevented this obviously lol.. My point is, the sun would appear to be wider than the buck is so he is actually being illuminated/highlighted literally on both sides making it essentially impossible to figure out which way he was looking. Very much of a rarified optics environment/opportunity for a odd ball capture as this.. This is an Optical Illusion distantly related to divergent light rays (crepuscular/anticrepuscular rays) and camera optics.. plus apparent/relative sizes. The physics behind a capture like this is just amazing to me.
Ambiguity is hard to catch as an image (I was about to write “on film”🤣) (RLT’s) or Really Long Telescope Lenses absolutely CRUSH perspective.
This 5X5 Buck was bedding in the deep snow. When the snow coats everything making snow noodles, it’s a winter wonderland up here. To come up on a pretty nice buck and not disturb him to get up out of his nice warm bed….priceless… Click..
I know, this is a little out of season but up here on the Montana/Wyoming border we can have snow any month of the year and it’s getting close to white season. We missed the brown season mostly up here this year.. It has been VERY wet all spring/summer.
