Hey, Move Over

Gallery: WildlifePosted September 22, 201497 views5 comments

Quiet morning today. Just does and their fawns. No bucks. When will they move in? Soon, I hope. I saw this doe letting her 2 fawns try to suckle at the same time. Maybe when they were younger but they're pretty big now. So it looks like pushing and shoving to me. Interesting in that the doe in the BG let her fawn suckle just a few minutes later. My first experience watching this behavior. So I got to document something new but not a great photo from a compositional perspective. I thought it was kind of late for this activity but as long as mom lets them, why not? I was interested in that the fawn on the left side has a nice brown and white tail. Compare to the doe. But these are black-tailed deer. Hmmm. I'll have to check out the other fawns. Maybe the top gets to be black with the first winter coat. This photo has a heavy crop to make the activity more visible. I bumped the contrast a bit but otherwise left it as it came from the camera. Comments appreciated.

Tech Info
Canon EOS 60D with EF 70-200mm f/4 at 159mm
1/400th at f/4 and ISO 1000
tripod
Lightroom 5

Comments

5 comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on September 23, 2014 at 4:21 PM

Hi Peter,

Rare moments like this can be tough to capture (how many hours have you spent deer-watching before you saw this?), so what I'm about to say should be taken as a "in a perfect world" comment.

The behaviour you documented is very interesting, but without the commentary it would likely be tough for many viewers of the image to know what is going on. From a purely photographic and creative perspective I find the large tree immediately behind the "main action" pretty intrusive (it's a pretty hard-to-ignore dominant visual element). Similarly, the deer in the background does detract a little for me too - simply because it's another bit of an eye-puller (but if it had to be there - which I know you couldn't control - better if it didn't overlap with your main subjects).

On the technical side - this looks pretty strong. You've handled the somewhat mottled lighting quite well and I think your DoF is well-controlled (and appropriate for the subject matter).

Cheers...

Brad

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Reed on September 23, 2014 at 5:34 PM

Peter. Love the idea behind this...and nice light. too bad you were not 15 feet to the right shooting the two young between the legs. That would remove the tree, background deer and some of the jumble...if only in a perfect world...I know...

Registered on September 19, 2009, 198 Posts, 1074 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on September 23, 2014 at 8:03 PM

Peter, glad you got to see and photograph this behavior. You said this is a large crop, but your techs. indicate you still had some zoom left. Thanks for sharing.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on September 23, 2014 at 11:56 PM

Nice behavioral capture, Peter. I find myself wishing you were about 60 degrees to the left for the shot. It you show more of the doe, move the tree out of th dominant center and balance things a bit better. Of course, a different angle might not have been possible. You got everything there was to get from the spot of the shot.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on September 26, 2014 at 8:07 PM

Techs and lighting look very good. And you were successful in documenting the behavior. I agree, however, that the perspective does not give us a clear view of the action and aesthetically it is somewhat jumbled.

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments