Bighorn Ram

This photo was taken during a week photo adventure in the Rocky Mountains near Banff. I spent the time traveling along the high ridges and lush valley on a horse, stopping frequently for photography. Each night was in a wilderness camp setting and I'd often spend the early mornings and late evenings hiking on foot. The photo is part of a spread that I did for the magazine Photolife. There was an accompanying article.

The photos was taken with a 20 mm lens on a Pentax Spotmatic camera using Kodachrome film. Over the years, I've developed a number of techniques for getting close to animals. I didn't need any of that for this shot. The ram was part of a group of about seven that actually came over to me on their own. The animals were in a very remote part of the park and probably didn't see people often, so they were curious.

I like using extreme wide angle lenses, as long as I can get close enough to keep a foreground element prominent in the background. For animal pictures, it gives the viewer a sense of the environment that critters call home.

Eye contact is an important compositional element in photographs of animate object. The direction of the ram's face would normally lead a viewer to the right, out of frame. However, the strong spiral of the horn leads the viewer back into the frame. As well, the diagonal lines of the mountains "funnel" the viewer's gaze left, back into the frame.