Looking forward to fall!
To me it means changing colors, crisp mornings with just a bit of haze on your breath, pumpkins and dried corn, some snow covered peaks, geese in flight, and deer in the field.
Or maybe little kids dressed up as something they wished they were....at least for one night.
I used to deer hunt a hundred years ago. Then I found the camera. I am still fond of the outdoors and the elusive white tail. And capturing one on camera is just the icing on the cake to a day in the wild. This one was not so elusive and found in Cades Cove, Tennessee.
Ah the Great Smokies.....if you've never, you should!
The deer there are practically tame and you can virtually walk right up to them. Hard to remember that they are wild creatures in such a setting. In other parts of the East, all you would see at this distance is a tail or white flag disappearing in the brush. Still makes my heat beat a little faster and the adrenalin flow. I will never forget the first one I walked up on in Northern New Jersey as a high school junior. All I saw was tail and heard the crash of an alarmed something in the woods. Quite a thrill and I was hooked.
There was a time when folks needed to hunt these critters just to survive and the native Americans were the experts in stalking them. Today, in most states in the Northeast there are too many of them and they eat their habitat to death. Hunting has been frowned upon and populations have exploded. For instance in New Jersey, where there are more deer per capita than anywhere else in the country, a large deer can be no larger than a big German Shepard. In other parts of the country where hunting is controlled, a money sport, and property is managed to the benefit of wildlife, some huge specimens can be found.
This image speaks to me of times lost. A single buck grazing before an ancient mountain range. All I needed to see was a native American stalking along the edge of the cove with bow and arrow to complete the mental image of a time long ago.
To me it means changing colors, crisp mornings with just a bit of haze on your breath, pumpkins and dried corn, some snow covered peaks, geese in flight, and deer in the field.
Or maybe little kids dressed up as something they wished they were....at least for one night.
I used to deer hunt a hundred years ago. Then I found the camera. I am still fond of the outdoors and the elusive white tail. And capturing one on camera is just the icing on the cake to a day in the wild. This one was not so elusive and found in Cades Cove, Tennessee.
Ah the Great Smokies.....if you've never, you should!
The deer there are practically tame and you can virtually walk right up to them. Hard to remember that they are wild creatures in such a setting. In other parts of the East, all you would see at this distance is a tail or white flag disappearing in the brush. Still makes my heat beat a little faster and the adrenalin flow. I will never forget the first one I walked up on in Northern New Jersey as a high school junior. All I saw was tail and heard the crash of an alarmed something in the woods. Quite a thrill and I was hooked.
There was a time when folks needed to hunt these critters just to survive and the native Americans were the experts in stalking them. Today, in most states in the Northeast there are too many of them and they eat their habitat to death. Hunting has been frowned upon and populations have exploded. For instance in New Jersey, where there are more deer per capita than anywhere else in the country, a large deer can be no larger than a big German Shepard. In other parts of the country where hunting is controlled, a money sport, and property is managed to the benefit of wildlife, some huge specimens can be found.
This image speaks to me of times lost. A single buck grazing before an ancient mountain range. All I needed to see was a native American stalking along the edge of the cove with bow and arrow to complete the mental image of a time long ago.
