Tule Elk walking across grassland at Point Reyes National Seashore, California.
I know I promised that the previous one would be the last… but, yes, one more tule elk photograph. (For now? ;-) This one was slightly apart from the others in the group as they began to move off to the right, and I managed to time this photograph so that the others were out of the frame. Beyond that… perhaps not a lot new to say about photographs of tule elk at Point Reyes! :-)
Young trees grow along the edge of subalpine meadows at Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park.
This meadow, right below Tioga Pass – which is among the trees in the saddle in the upper part of the photograph – is something of a magical spot in the Sierra. It is, of course, the highest point that you can drive to in the park, and it sits right on top of the crest of the Sierra Nevada. At just slightly less than 10,000′ of elevation it is verging on the true alpine zone. Because of elevation and location, it is only open for a few months each year between roughly the end of spring and generally some time in November. (For those of us who think of this as it looks in summer, it is sobering to remember that during the majority of the year it is a cold and snow-covered place.) Once you pass over Tioga you begin to descend into the very different world of the high deserts east of the crest. Yes, it still feels like the high country for a while, but within miles you are in hot dry places that are not at all like this alpine terrain.
Oddly, while a thin band of trees crosses the saddle at the pass, much of the area on either side is meadow. This section is on the “Yosemite side,” and is an extension of the many meadows along the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River which drains this area around Mount Dana. As if to reinforce the idea that this is not as gentle a place as it may appear in the summer, parts of the meadow are filled with the bleached remains of trees struck down by avalanches from the ridge that is out of this photograph to the left. The trail to the summit Mt. Dana, of the second-highest peak of Yosemite (being a few feet shorter than Mt. Lyell), begins by crossing this meadow.
Although I drive over this pass with some frequency, I virtually always stop and get out of the car and look around for at least a moment. On this late-July visit I stayed more than a moment, spending a good portion of an afternoon wandering about the meadow and photographing these young trees, small streams and ponds, fallen trees, some of the more distant mountains, and much else.
Three tule elk grazing on hills above Drakes Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore, California.
This is one more – and possibly the last – in the series of tule elk photographs that I made at the Point Reyes National Seashore on Memorial Day. A group of perhaps eight or ten bull elk were grazing along the top of the hills above Drakes Bay when we encountered them in beautiful late afternoon light. As soon as I got out with my camera they moved just a bit further away, but still well within photography range.
There is a typical sequence in how I usually photograph creatures such as these. Because I never know how long they will stick around, I begin my just shooting them in any way that seems even somewhat interesting, perhaps muttering to myself, “At least I have tule elk shots in my portfolio now!” But after getting a few “insurance” shots right off the bat, I start to be more selective and more observant. Initially, I’m looking for a variety of interesting individual shots. These might include a single animal separate from the group, perhaps the full group, and perhaps sub-groups of two or three. I also pay a lot of attention to their positions, watching to make sure that faces are visible. (In this shot, the leftmost elk is partially obscured, but because his eyes are still visible and because of the way his antlers align with those of the front animal, on balance I don’t think this is a big problem.) I also watch for distracting elements, and may stop shooting if they are present. For example, the rear end of an elk is bright white and, uh, not the most photogenic part of the beast – so I wait until an animal presenting its backside to the camera either moves out of the frame or rotates into a better position.
I also try to think the same way I think when photographing a group of people. Their faces and eyes are the most important things, with the relationships their positions create among them being a very close second. Here two of the elk are looking almost at me, but slightly past my left shoulder. The third animal seems to be looking more toward the other two, creating a different sort of relationship among the animals. These things are so fleeting that I sometimes don’t see them until they have happened, so I have learned to not be conservative about exposing a lot of frames!
To the extent that I have control over such things, I also like to think about the angle of the light on the subjects. Sometimes you have no choice – you simply have to shoot from where you are. However, with these elk I did have some range of options. They were along a road, and I chose to stop a bit before their position because the light coming from the left would light them in a more dramatic and interesting fashion than if I had gotten closer and shot them with the light right behind me. In addition, I try to look beyond the animals themselves and be aware of how they position themselves against background subjects. This particular shot isn’t a great example, but in others I might wait for the moving animals to position themselves in a place where the background elements relate to them in some interesting way.
With all of this detail, you might get the idea that I’m standing there making a series of careful and logical calculations about how to shoot these guys. That’s not really what happens at all. Much of it turns out to happen in a quick and intuitive and almost subconscious manner “in the moment.” I’ve probably written here before about my belief in the important of “practice” (something I learned from my musical background) when it comes to being able to work and see quickly and effectively.
Four tule elk in the meadows at Point Reyes National Seashore.
When the day started I had no idea that I might be photographing wildlife today, much less tule elk! In fact, today was meant to be primarily a photography day. We decided to spend the day on a coastal drive, starting with breakfast in Santa Cruz and then heading north to… wherever we ended up. We had a vague idea that it might be interesting to end up at Point Reyes Station perhaps, where there was an open art studio event going on.
By mid-afternoon, that is indeed where we ended up. We stopped in town to get coffee and a snack and wander about just a bit. With no specific plan in mind we sort of decided to head on out to Point Reyes – the actual “point,” not just the general park. On the way back we took a detour down to Drakes Bay for a quick stop. As we drive back up from there to the top of the hill near the main road we saw some strange shapes in the distance behind a fence. The looked like antlers, but that didn’t seem right – this particular area is dairy country and the elk that I had heard about were in a different area of the park. But as we reached the top of the hill it became completely obvious that a small herd of tule elk were grazing right on the other side of the fence. We pulled over and I grabbed my long lens. The elk were kind enough to occasionally look up from the business of grazing and pose dramatically in the low late-afternoon light from the west.
