Bighorn Sheep

Thanks to Tim Torell of Digital Wildlife Images I went up to the Ruby Mountains this past week to find some Bighorn sheep. I only had a couple days to photograph them, but what a great experience. The sheep are in the rut this time of year, though I believe things were quieting down and I did not witness any head butting, though I did see a pair of Rams stand up on two legs and challenge each other.


I found this very cooperative pair in the early morning before the sun had risen. When taking photos in the shade or in heavy overcast conditions the light is generally flat and cool. To correct this in post processing increasing the color temperature during RAW conversion and increasing the contrast with curves is needed. The big advantage of this flat light of course is no shadows. I observed and photographed this pair for about 2 hours.



This photo of the Ram with a High Key background was taken with the sun behind a cloud casting a shadow in the foreground, but leaving the background in bright sun. The background sky is actually blue sky, but to get the exposure correct on the Ram I had to overexpose the background, which caused the blue sky to blow out. I don't particularly care for this type of photograph, but I know that some people do.



This is a photo of the Ram looking out over the canyon. I wish he would have stepped out just a bit further so that his hindquarters were visible, but he never did.

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