A few more from the day

robbins.photo · Aug 30, 2015

Lake and Park 044 by Todd Robbins, on Flickr

Lake and Park 005 by Todd Robbins, on Flickr

Lake and Park 518 by Todd Robbins, on Flickr

Lake and Park 639 by Todd Robbins, on Flickr

baturn · Aug 30, 2015

Very nice! That's an impressive elk.

wyogirl · Aug 30, 2015

love the bison and the elk!

snowbear · Aug 30, 2015

Bear. I like the bear.
I like the others, too.

robbins.photo · Aug 30, 2015

baturn said:
Very nice! That's an impressive elk.

Thanks, he was posing so pretty.. then he found out I wasn't taking shots for an insurance ad. He was out of there.. lol

wyogirl said:
love the bison and the elk!

The bison were great. I guess there must have been a pretty girl nearby somewhere.. lol

snowbear said:
Bear. I like the bear.
I like the others, too.

Thanks SB.. somehow I had a feeling you'd like the bear shot. Guess I'm psychotic. No.. wait, psychic. I dunno.. one of the two.. lol

WesternGuy · Aug 31, 2015

Nice shots. I am curious where these were taken because how close did you have to get to the elk and the bear for those images, or are they cropped? I can understand if they are cropped, because I wouldn't want to get that close to the bear unless I had a good telephoto lens and the same goes for the elk. It is close to mating season, if not already in progress, and male elks can be very nasty if you get too close and the bear, well two guys on quadra-tracks were attacked yesterday in the foothills, not very far west of the city when they ran into a female grizzly with cubs on a backcountry trail - all parties still alive, but the guys were a little chewed up - bear spray to the rescue.

WesternGuy

robbins.photo · Aug 31, 2015

WesternGuy said:
Nice shots. I am curious where these were taken because how close did you have to get to the elk and the bear for those images, or are they cropped? I can understand if they are cropped, because I wouldn't want to get that close to the bear unless I had a good telephoto lens and the same goes for the elk. It is close to mating season, if not already in progress, and male elks can be very nasty if you get too close and the bear, well two guys on quadra-tracks were attacked yesterday in the foothills, not very far west of the city when they ran into a female grizzly with cubs on a backcountry trail - all parties still alive, but the guys were a little chewed up - bear spray to the rescue.

WesternGuy

The elk was shot at a friend of mines property, he lives near a private lake that I go to fairly often to shoot. In this particular case I got pretty close, not much cropping involved. In the interest of full disclosure though there was a big barb wired fence between us.. lol.

The bear and bison are both from the local safari park, which is about 10-15 miles down the road from where my buddy lives. The bear enclosure is huge - and heavily wooded. There is one elevated platform that you can access and a small clearing, but it's not all that often that they get close enough to it that you can get a decent shot of them.

The bison have acres and acres to roam around in and they have the run of that whole section, so they just pretty much do whatever they please.

Donde · Aug 31, 2015

Beautiful set. Sharp and nicely exposed. I like their poses especially those "face" shots.

robbins.photo · Aug 31, 2015

Donde said:
Beautiful set. Sharp and nicely exposed. I like their poses especially those "face" shots.

Thanks Donde, had a lot of fun on sunday. Nice to be able to get out and shoot again. I forgot how much I missed it.

WesternGuy · Aug 31, 2015

Thanks for the on-site info. Barb wire fences always help, particularly as mating season approaches.

I have had to hide behind large spruce trees (false charge) on more than one occasion :biggrin-93:

. Fortunately, the big bulls will warn you if they think you are getting too close, but not always, thus I always make sure I have a tree to retreat to as once you disappear, they seem to forget about you, or at least that has been my experience.

WesternGuy

robbins.photo · Aug 31, 2015

WesternGuy said:
Thanks for the on-site info. Barb wire fences always help, particularly as mating season approaches.

I have had to hide behind large spruce trees (false charge) on more than one occasion . Fortunately, the big bulls will warn you if they think you are getting too close, but not always, thus I always make sure I have a tree to retreat to as once you disappear, they seem to forget about you, or at least that has been my experience.

WesternGuy

Yup.. usually at the very least they'll make some noise and start pawing at the ground, or lower their heads and shake them about a bit to show you what you'll end up getting if you don't back off. I don't think I worried this big guy a bit though, he just stood there and stared at me.

JacaRanda · Aug 31, 2015

Nice set. I'm probably falling into that ignorant zone :1398:

, by thinking some things should be tack sharp. Looks like maybe a little motion blur in the deer and elk. Donde sees sharp, so probably my 52 year old eyes. If the elk head was sharper, it would be super cool instead of really cool

.

The bear does appear sharp, but wish his chest and legs did not go straight to pure black.

Man, you have a really nice place to go if you can get that close!

robbins.photo · Aug 31, 2015

JacaRanda said:
Nice set. I'm probably falling into that ignorant zone , by thinking some things should be tack sharp. Looks like maybe a little motion blur in the deer and elk. Donde sees sharp, so probably my 52 year old eyes. If the elk head was sharper, it would be super cool instead of really cool .

The bear does appear sharp, but wish his chest and legs did not go straight to pure black.

Man, you have a really nice place to go if you can get that close!

The deer was shot at 1/320 and she took off when I got close, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were a bit of motion blur there, the Elk looked sharp enough to me but since the accident it's been kind of a struggle figuring out what is "sharp" and what is "over-sharp". I really need new glasses but the guy who was responsible for the accident, well his insurance company decided to play hardball and not reimburse me for medical fees so it set me back a bit.

I can sue them but realistically it will most likely cost me as much in legal fees as the medical bills will cost me, so in the end it will just wind up being a waste of my time. My guess is the insurance company probably realized that which is why they did this in the first place. I guess I should have hammed it up and hit them with all sorts of bills from chiropractors, etc, so I'd have enough to make it worth my time to sue them. As it is it's one ER visit and one follow up visit so the cost of an attorney is going to be as much if not more than what the bills were.

But no worries, such be life sometimes.

JacaRanda · Aug 31, 2015

Gotcha. And glad you are getting up and out again. Thanks for sharing!

robbins.photo · Aug 31, 2015

JacaRanda said:
Gotcha. And glad you are getting up and out again. Thanks for sharing!

Yup, no worries. Kind of bad timing, the accident took place shortly after I lost the old job and as a result I didn't have insurance of my own, and since his insurance company denied paying both claims I got stuck footing the whole bill out of pocket. I've got a new job now but at the moment it's one of those deals where I'm working as a subcontractor, so I'll have to wait till I can see about getting hired on full time before my glasses might be covered under the new insurance.

But hey, such be life. I'm still mobile and I can still shoot, so everything else is just gravy I guess.. lol.