Mud Bath

After spending the day at the Knoxville Zoo, far from home, it was nice to get back into my old stomping ground, and bring my friend back to experience nature in a different way. This of course is one of the elk I have been documenting for the past few years with my photography, strong, proud, antlers not symmetrical, and in this case, covered in mud. I managed to miss the large animal thrashing in the mud puddle, though the ranger I stopped to talk to gave me a full account. Of course this individual was apparently giddy for the rut a bit early, and was making a bit of a scene, despite that, I gathered my wits about me, and began capturing fresh images.

The Rut typically runs from mid September, all the way through middle October, sometimes a bit later, and yes does occasionally start a little early. This big animal is actually the smaller of the two adult elk in the park, his antlers are non symmetrical, and the park service had stopped collaring the males by the time this one came of age. Male elk tend to be a more solitary animal, and therefore more difficult to track outside of the rut, though I’ve never had much problem finding them during the off season.

For the edit, I used a bit of a different approach, using global color adjustments to lean into the more faded look of this photo. While it may seem counter productive to shift colors away from brilliance, it actually allows me to build more depth into the image. The grass here while less green, is more visible, the sign in the background next to the road, less prominent, but also looks further back. I had to tone down the elk quite a bit, the colors were slightly blown out, but now it has a more powerful appearance in the frame. At least that’s my opinion.

Until Next Time!

Aperture: f8
ISO: 800
SS: 1/250th
Focal: 560mm

Fujinon 100-400mm TC 1.4X