The deer of late summer

[byuphoto]

I have been out more looking for deer photos. I took this one late one evening in Union Parish.

Canon F1N
Canon 200mm f2.8
Fuji Pro 400

[Just Plain Curt]

Very nice, peaceful shot Rick. I saw a deer running along the road three days ago near my house. There was a chainlink fence for approx. 300 feet on both sides of the road and the panicked doe was running absolutely flat out from side to side trying to find a way off the road. As I got within 60 feet, she turned and ran back the way she'd originally come from, along a riverbank that's wooded running alongside the mill I work at. Hope she made out ok.

[brianvsweeney]

Beautiful shot. The deer in our yard still gets spooked by the cameras. But not my cars.

[backalley]

very nice; looks like a painting.

[GeneW]

I agree with Joe. There's a painterly quality to the beautiful, soft backlighting. A very nice one indeed!

[PeterW]

I like this one. It's a lovely picture.

Now, for a bit of fun and because I've got nothing better to do at the moment, I'm going to step back in time and make the sort of comment that's typical of those by the resident critics of UK photo magazines back in the 1950s who dealt with 'Readers' Pictures'. I had several criticisms of pictures I sent in suggesting changes that I couldn't possibly have made at the time. They almost put me off photography, but fortunately they didn't. They almost put me off the magazines. Here's the sort of thing that they might have said:

"A good attempt but it would be improved a lot if the deer was moved slightly to the right and turned anticlockwise through about 220 degrees so that it was walking into the sunlit glade and caught the backlighting."

My reply would have been something like: "OK, now come and show me how talk to a deer, or to bring a tame deer with you that responds like a sheepdog - or maybe even a stuffed deer".

I did reply to the criticisms of several of my pictures, suggesting that maybe he would come out with me and knock on doors asking the householders for permission to take down their television aerials, or ask the Post Office to re-route some of their telephone poles and lines, or how about asking a farmer if he would mind moving his haystack a few yards to the left?.

My replies weren't printed, but after a few of these the Editor wrote and asked me to send in a portfolio for possible publication together with a few words saying why and how I took the pictures. I did, and it was published, and paid for. It was one of my earliest freelance successes.

And guess what? In the introduction to his column in the same issue the resident critic (who wrote under a pen-name) said something like: "Have a look at Peter's portfolio on page 00. I'm so glad he has taken some of my comments to heart and learned from them. Well done Peter"

Maybe I did learn something from him after all.

Peter W.

[byuphoto]

Peter, now we see how badly you have influenced me and caused me to write these rants;-) Thanks all. It does seem I have an ability to see good light and not even notice it. Most of the time I don't know how it will turn out. That is one reason I enjoy film so much. The unexpected. We must learn to get it right without a histogram.