About 75 yards uphill from my bedroom window is a rock knob with trees and bushes around its base. Today at lunch time there were three bears browsing the berries, mama and two cubs. Mama is roughly 250-300 pounds, the cubs 125-150. I did not buy a tag this year and sows with cubs, and the cubs, are off limits anyway, so the first thought was the camera. I swept up the Canon F-1 and 85-300mm zoom, slapped them on the tripod and...no film! Not in the camera, not in the gear bag, not in the car, not in any of the dozens of places I looked. The nearest store is 10 miles, with a four wheel drive only driveway, gates, and twisty back roads, a 45 minute round trip. The bears would never have stayed once the car started, anyway. So, I grabbed the binoculars and watched.
One of the cubs worked his way out on the branches and, eventually, gravity happened and the cub went ballistic for about fifteen feet. The fall was so long and so obvious in the making, I could not have missed the hot photos. Then, in the way of animals when you are out of film, they posed. All three went to the top of the knob and stood shoulder to shoulder facing the camera with the sun at about 11 o'clock, nothing but blue sky and a few clouds behind them. In unison, they scanned the valley, and my house, below. Hot poses, hot lighting, and tons of time, but no film. GRRRRRR!!!
Don't get caught short!
One of the cubs worked his way out on the branches and, eventually, gravity happened and the cub went ballistic for about fifteen feet. The fall was so long and so obvious in the making, I could not have missed the hot photos. Then, in the way of animals when you are out of film, they posed. All three went to the top of the knob and stood shoulder to shoulder facing the camera with the sun at about 11 o'clock, nothing but blue sky and a few clouds behind them. In unison, they scanned the valley, and my house, below. Hot poses, hot lighting, and tons of time, but no film. GRRRRRR!!!
Don't get caught short!
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