Maybe It Didn’t Really Happen…

I’m lucky enough to live near Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. And I take a trip out there at least once a month. But during the winter, I make a beeline for it every time it snows.

Now, I’m a sucker for the opportunity to capture pictures of just about any animal in their habitat, but I’m especially drawn to bison. Their bulky build, curved horns and dark, shaggy coat capture my imagination. But being able to watch them forage around in the contrasting colors of a bright snowy day really accentuates their power and prestige…Usually.

On this given day, the sun was bright, and reflecting off of the snow with a special kind of intensity. I took several shots to try and capture what I was seeing, but everything was wildly over exposed, except for the bison, which was essentially a black Rorschach test blot. The two extremes were poised against me and the ability to get the image I wanted. So I got creative and decided to just do it in post.

I opened up my exposure all the way, tried to manually focus as best I could, and fired off a few clicks of the shutter before looking at the digital display. The result was akin to what someone with snow blindness would see. Just white as far as the eye could see with various degrees smudges running through the image.

When I got home, I dropped the image into Lightroom to see what I could salvage. A few tweaks here, a few slides of some settings there, and I was able to recreate what I actually saw at Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge…At least I think so…The memory isn’t quite as reliable as it used to be.

Nonetheless, this image of a bison standing in a snowy field, showing off its thick coat, contrasted with the bright environment it had been foraging in (as seen around its mouth) in exactly the way I was hoping for.

Sure this probably wouldn’t pass the sniff test over at National Geographic, but it was still a win for me. Whenever I need a reminder of the rugged resilience of wildlife in winter, I just look at this image that I think emphasizes the beauty and the starkness of nature.