Yellowstone Elk

[John Blumenkamp]

I created this image at Mammoth a couple seasons ago. This bull was displaying some classic herding postures, and I had the intent to try for an image like this with the head-on look. Being Mammoth, maybe this should be considered more of a captive shot... lol. But this big guy was definitely wild.

20D w/ 70-200 f/4
1/350 f/4 iso200

Thanks for looking,
John

[DanWalters]

Nice shot. Really like the head on shot and the vertical comp.

[Ed Cordes]

I like the head on view. I wish the BG were a bit less cluttered,

[Robert Amoruso]

I like the composition and posture of the Elk. You could do a gaussian blur on the BG (but not the yellow flowers) to soften that.

He looks like he is on a golf course and that is distracting to me.

[Jasper Doest]

Lovely pose....! But like Robert the "golf course" is a bit distracting....you could have easily avoided that by laying down on the ground, shooting from a very low angle.

[D. Robert Franz]

The centered subject works well here due to the implied motion of the bull towards the viewer. Nice light and very sharp. The grass as mentioned above doesn't really fir our perceptions of the wilderness elk but I know how it is in Mammoth. You could get lower but I for one would not want to lay down in front of one of those mean bulls in Mammoth. I witnessed a photographer get attacked by a bull in Mammoth, he was very lucky he didn't get hurt...