So much Yellowstone exploration is road-based that it’s fitting I post something from the park for this challenge. A short while before this picture was taken, we had a roadside wolf in the falling snow. Afterward, I drove further south and found this bull, resting on a berm above the road. I’d actually envisioned finding a “two-faced” bison, half-encrusted in snow, earlier in the trip, so the moment I saw this guy I had to pull over.
Canon R5
Canon EF 600mm f/4 + 1.4x
ISO 1000
1/640th
f/5.6
Max, a lovely “weathered” portrait of, I imagine, an old bison. The white strip at the bottom does not add to the great impression for me, but I’m pretty sure others will disagree!
Sounds like you had an amazing day in the park on that day. For sure Yellowstone perfectly captures the idea of taking images on the road given how it is nearly all road based exploration. As for the image itself, I really like the contrast between the “two” faces of the bison and their dark coat perfectly lends itself for this sort of image. I also like the sleepy eyes as it adds some humor to the photo. I agree with Mike about the snowy foreground but having had a couple closer than ideal encounters with these guys I totally understand why it’s there!
Max, this is an outstanding portrait of this bull in the snow. I’m wondering how greying in the strip at the bottom to match the sky’s luminosity would look.
This is a great close-up portrait of this Bison that really shows the severity of the conditions that they survive in, Max! It’s always thrilling when this type of opportunity happens during a road trip. The detail in this is excellent and it’s especially impressive when viewed large. As for the bar of snow & grass at the bottom, I think I would have been inclined to shoot a few shots with a significantly narrower aperture to pick up more detail in the berm which would be less distracting. Since the bison was obviously very still the loss of shutter speed probably wouldn’t hurt much.
Gary, that’s good thinking, though I was probably close enough that stopping down still wouldn’t have brought in enough detail to get the foreground to even out the texture. In this case I don’t think the landscape would’ve allowed me the space to do it, but that’s a good idea for next time.
