In the film days one could do, or attempt to do, the same thing in printing by dodging and burning, but the methods then were somewhat crude compared to what Photoshop allows one to do to mitigate exposure problems. I did what I could at the time which was to compensate some by overexposing a bit and then compensated some more in Photoshop. Well, you can’t always follow the rules in wildlife photography. The number one rule in outdoor photography is keep the sun at your back. You can see from the rim lighting around the elk’s body that the sun was coming from behind it. The lighting was very bad for this photo. The cow moves her calf (or calves) several times a day during that seven days and they stay motionless until their mom comes back to feed and move them. The calf is kept hidden for about a week. When cow elk are close to giving birth they go off by themselves for the birthing. She looks like she may be pregnant and I assume she was close to giving birth. I hope it made it.Īs I was driving from Mammoth to Tower shortly after sunrise one morning I spotted this lone cow elk looking at me. I got there by first light, but there was no sign of the calf or its mother. By that time I had developed some connection to the calf and its mother and I decided that even though it was far from where I was staying I would get there by first light the next morning to see if the little one made it through the night. I stayed until I couldn’t see and took this photo well after sunset. He added that a pair of coyotes had made an attempt to get the calf, but the mother had held them off. Another photographer was already there and he told me he saw the mother give birth that morning.
They live about five years less than elk in the rest of the park, according the the Park Service.Īnyway, it was getting late when I spotted a cow elk with this very small calf. The animals are also affected by high fluoride and silica levels in the plants and water which wear their teeth out prematurely. It’s the only elk herd that stays in the park in the winter and that takes its toll. That’s partly because the elk herd in the Firehole/Madison area numbers less than 100 animals. I don’t regularly drive along the Madison because I don’t have much luck there. It was mid-June in Yellowstone and I was driving along the Madison River looking for animals to photograph, especially baby animals.
That’s true with the images of this elk calf. When I look at old photos I don’t remember much about some, but others I remember very well. Another thing I did in the interim was go through old images, like this photo of an elk calf, which I photographed in 2014. Hopefully, I’ve done what it takes for everyone to find this site. I’m back and one thing I did during the interim was build a new website (and get rid of two former websites). I apologize to those who have followed my blog for not having posted anything for many months.
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