Special Rules Apply

Special Rules Apply - North Fork Shoshone River, Wyoming

A quick perusal of my photo archives makes it fairly obvious that the vast majority of the photos I take are landscapes. This trip was one of those where the opportunity to do something a little different presented itself.

Having shot quite a few landscapes I'm quite familiar with creating good composition, tweaking all the settings appropriately, and, in most cases, know what my post-processing flow is going to look like during or even before taking the photo. Bring some kind of wildlife or people into the photo and I quickly get out of my element. For one, taking time to get a perfect composition with wildlife is extremely difficult at best. When I'm working on a landscape shot I can usually take my time setting up and pondering my composition and then take as many photos as I like at my own pace (after all, it's not like the mountain is going to move any time soon). Wildlife, on the other hand, are not likely to be anywhere near as cooperative. These sheep were not skittish around people in the least, but even taking that into account I had to quickly adopt the rapid fire posture I use when I'm taking photos of small children. Roughly frame composition then take a ton of photos and worry about precise cropping and such in post. Just like with kids, if there's no photos to work with, there's no chance of having a good one; if there are a ton of photos to choose from, the odds of having a good one amongst the bunch sky rocket.

Taking that all into account I'm quite happy with the result on these shots of these bighorn sheep.

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep - North Fork Shoshone River, Wyoming Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep - North Fork Shoshone River, Wyoming