Bison Winter Portrait

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Image Description

Since my trips to Yellowstone in the winter I have learned SO much about how wildlife survives severe weather. Maybe common knowledge to some, but I didn’t know a bison’s massive head and huge muscles in their humps are perfectly designed to swing their heads side to side in the deep snows of winter to clear them away to the grasses below for foraging. Really fun to watch them do this.

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Not sure this really gets the foraging story across (might need a video for that), but does it stand alone at least as an interesting portrait?

Pertinent Technical Details

Taken 540m away with my sony 100-400 +1.4 TC set-up. ISO 2500, f/8, 1/500

Very nice, Connie. It certainly conveys a sense of the power of these animals, though I think you’d have to move further out to get the sense of foraging. The light reflecting off the snow helped bring out the eye, which I’ve found difficult to get looking decent on bison in the summer.

Hi, Connie - a nice portrait you’ve posted!
I think it might be more effective, though, with a much looser crop allowing more snow beneath the bison’s mouth - that would convey foraging.
Nice detail in the fur, too.

Connie, this is a good looking head shot of this snowy bison, who’s been shoving the snow to get to some food. It does seem too bright, especially the golden fir along the top. I started out wondering about cropping to 4x5 to make it a head shot, but the longer I look the more I feel that including the bit of leg on the right adds to the sense that this is a powerful animal.

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Hi Connie,

An interesting view of this bison. You may want to try different crops to see whether one provides more drama for the overall scene. The image is very bright and reducing the overall exposure and reducing highlight brightness may bring out some of the details in the snow that are concealed by the brightness. Other than that, a fine view of this bison…Jim