Problem is; I've already taken hundreds of ordinary images of them, only a few of which really separate themselves from the others. That is what I am seeking for this season-long project, and going forward; photographs that reside outside the routine. An image that captures not only the animal behavior, but one showing where it lives. Much of that depends on the deer of course. Sometimes they cooperate, most times they do not. Their senses often spoil your attempts. Even so, the challenge is what drives you, keeps you sitting there with a cramping back and stiff legs waiting for the moment to present itself.
The afternoon drifts away toward evening and the angles of light begin to cast shadows through the tangle of woodlands that mark the perimeter of the recently harvested cornfield. The fall season colors are but a few days away from busting out. Already chilly, with some color growing across the landscape, you relish nature's transitional moments. Not quite there yet, but headed in that direction. It's easy to get distracted maybe even nod off as the warmth of Indian Summer surrounds you, but then your leg cramps and you gotta stretch it out. Not so easily done sitting inside a burlap and stick blind barely large enough to accommodate your frame, a tripod, and your camera.
Even when hidden behind the camouflaged burlap, movements can still alert a whitetail. Their hearing and eyesight honed precisely into a keen sharpness by nature's way of survival. Even a slight shift of the gentle breeze will betray you...all of a sudden you hear it, that loud, sharp, snorting bleat of an alert doe whose nose told her an intruder is close by. A few moments before and you felt like they would never show themselves. Now, they detected you before you even knew they were there.
You see it move to your right; not where you expected, angled away just enough so your camera cannot rotate that far without moving the entire contraption, and that would make a far to obvious commotion. So, you wait. You dare not move. She can't see you, so calms down and begins to move, head down occasionally checking the breeze for intruder scent. Suddenly, there are now three, then five. They move so silently in spite of the dry conditions. Finally, you are able to fire off a few quick photos. They hear the soft wisk of the shutter and instantly look up all eyes locked onto where you are. They cannot possibly see you inside the blind, but they instinctively know something is not quite right. They grow agitated. Stomp the ground, snort twice, then a third time, and that subtle gentle breeze shifts ever so slightly again, they twitch, raise their tails, and bolt across the field. They run maybe two hundred yards before stopping, turn back to give you one more look of contempt before they calm down enough to begin feeding again.
By this time, the sun has settled to just above the horizon and a bit of a chill runs down the back of your exposed neck, but you don't really feel it, locked onto the moment. Maybe another five minutes of shooting light left, but the best light is now. The does are standing in the gray of cast shadows. Soft, golden, mid-October light floods the far treeline, the horizon gray shadow ever so steady, creeps across the field to the base of the woodlands.
More movement. Two, three more does emerge from the shadows across the field and meander toward the fading light. Another two minutes and the good light will end. One of them saunters to the edge of the shadowed area, hesitates, then moves across a last remnant beam of sunlight that sets her aglow as she stands beneath overhanging limbs. You focus the camera lens peering through isolated grasses in the field and lock onto her. One more step...Click. A moment later, the light show comes to an end, and everything turns a blue gray.
Several hours of waiting, anticipating, not knowing for sure if there would even be an opportunity to photograph these amazing creatures in their habitat. You never know for sure what will happen, how the light will interact with the deer, but, you hang on, and wait...wait...until the last moment of light...when Nature says "Here I am."
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