Wildlife Photo Competition 1 2014 : Entry Number 55

Judges Comment

Well this came so close to winning. It is a stunning close up shot of a running herd of deer, a difficult photo to take. You have gone further than just taking a picture with this exciting crop and action composition of so many heads and eyes and ears. Beautiful and original work. However when it comes to the technical crunch there is a slight lack of focus on the most prominent deer, the one my eye wants to settle on…

Photographers Comment

At the end of the day I ran across this herd of elk while exploring around Ellensburg, in eastern Washington. I brought the car to a stop and just had a few quick moments to set up with a long lens out my car window. The light was fading so I had to shoot at a high ISO and a wide open aperture. The herd watched me for a moment, and then started to move into the brush, each one watching me as they moved away. I cropped this shot for the center elk, but in hindsight, I probably should have cropped the right most elk a little more. He is out of focus. I cropped for the ears and eyes, and should have cropped out the out-of-focus elk, or at least cropped to exclude his eye.
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