This time of the year in the Wild West, there is a very wild animal that's dangerous beyond belief.  They are big, brown and hairy, and are not Grizzly Bears.  Yet, they seem so cute and lovable you'd just like to run up and hug one.  There is little doubt that this particular mammal could be a danger to your health, if you are without sense.  Never, and I mean NEVER, get too close to a Baby Buffalo (Bison) and it's mother!  More people are injured by Bison than are hurt by Grizzlies, but the big bears get all the good press.  A mother Buffalo will stomp you into a little red spot, and this is after she tries to gore you with horns that are like huge hunting knives.  

     It's easy to find horror stories of the unaware tourist being squashed into a headline on the news.  In Yellowstone National Park, the baby Bison and their mothers are kept away from the visitors to the park for a reason; yet, I've watched as a tourist tried to cross the river to get a closer shot none-the-less.  As the yellow flier that is still given to every visitor to the park warns, "Buffalo are dangerous!" and they are not kidding.  In Colonial America the British gave up trying to domesticate the American Buffalo; they were considered too powerful and unpredictable.  Ornery, Nana would have said.    

     I started out this blog with the previous warning for a good reason; when photographing anything that could do you bodily harm....use a long lens.  Educate yourself to the behavior of the animal you are trying to approach; don't just walk up to any animal without understanding their behavior, this lack of knowledge could be your ticket to the hospital, or the morgue.  When in doubt use a longer lens; and stay farther away.  You want the wildlife to not know you're there.  Like the old Indian in that old film, try to be invisible; give the wild animals a respectful distance.  I was not as close to this big mama Bison as it appears, and I also had a truck to use as a safe hide.                                                                                         Nursing Baby Bison-Wyoming.Nursing Baby Bison in Hot Springs State Park, Wyoming.      Starting out with the selected RAW file in Canon's supplied software, and doing the saturation, sharpness, white balance, tone curve adjustments and such, till I liked the photo more. I then worked the saved tiff file in the one button HDR that is hidden in Digital Photo Professional; this gives the photograph a more modern-look that is so popular now.  From there the file is again worked in Adobe Lightroom to make the picture snap, and add metadata to the digital file.  After a selected watermark we're done.  Total work time on this picture?  Well, I had 150 others to consider; and digital photography allows the old artist to escape, and I want to make it MY ART!  So let's just say quite some time.

     I heard about the baby Buffalo and had tried for weeks to get close enough for some memorable shots, but they were always too far away.  The Buffalo Pastures are only twelve miles the way the Eagle flies from our Wind River Canyon home, but I had zero luck till last Wednesday; good luck does take time.  The video was shot on the fly without my trusty old tripod; I used the truck's window frame as support for my Canon 7D video of the baby Bison nursing.  My senses were sharp enough to cut glass! this is a real Rocky Mountain High!  Listen closely and you will hear the Springtime Wyoming wind, and the other baby Bison walking by, all in high-definition.                         Nursing Baby Bison Video - Hot Springs State Park, WyomingA video of a nursing baby Bison in Hot Springs State Park, Wyoming.      I would like you to notice how creative you can get with today's photography; it's a creativity that in my Grandfather's darkroom would have been science fiction, yet now this ability to let out your inner Renoir is commonplace.  So, let out that artist that hides within....and shoot some video!

Photography, Videography, Digital Darkroom, and Writing by Michael John Balog-Wind River Canyon.

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