I have been fascinated by the slender wisps of grace called white-tailed deer all my life.  They bound through the air as if gravity has less hold on them than on me.  When they walk, it is quietly, seldom breaking a twig or crinkling a leaf.

In many areas where I hike, camp, or visit, man is not one of their predators, so observing them is relatively easy.

As a nature photographer I have taken hundreds of pictures of them. I am always looking for that grabber shot, the picture that people will stop and look at for more than two seconds.  I think I can count on one hand the ones that meet that lofty standard.

I do feel qualified to discuss how I got those shots and others that come close.  The most important technique is patience.  You can’t be disappointed and give up just because on this day you can’t get close enough.  Historically, white-tails are prey for many carnivores and are wary of any predator-like actions.

First, find a good time and location frequented by deer.  Twilight at a large open meadow with good thick wooded borders is most likely to get you deer company.  “Big Meadows” in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia is ideal.

Next, on several visits, observe where they hang out, where they go, at what sun angles (as a measure of time of day), and what they will tolerate.  Your objective is to observe them without disturbing them.  They have an important job to do at that time.  They are browsing.  They are gathering enough food to keep them alive and fit to escape those predators.  Don't do anything that interferes with their normal behavior.  And especially, do not feed them. 

Look for how they communicate with each other.  Look at their travel patterns as they feed.  If something causes them to take flight, note what it is.  You are going to learn how not to disturb them.  Do your observations from a distance.  How far away?  That is part of what you have to learn.  If the deer keep looking at you, you are probably too close.

Notice that, as a deer is browsing on low grasses and leaves, its senses are blocked from the surrounding world, it frequently raises its head and looks around, sniffs the air for scents and twitches those big ears around listening for any warning sounds.

Much of the stalking advice you read in hunting guides stresses camouflage clothing, and stealthy approach from down wind.  But those are predator behaviors.  When a white-tailed deer is not sure what that is moving just a little ways away, it stops eating and tries to determine if this is something to fear.  Is it time to run?

Instead of acting like a hunter, I have tried to develop non-predator actions and behaviors that will put the deer back into a comfortable, safe feeling.  As I approach, I think first of the photographic lighting and composition requirements.  Can I get the light of the setting sun to be at an angle that will pop out the texture of the coarse hairs on the deer’s hide.  Can I use the light to highlight the whiskers, the antlers, or the surrounding brush.  

 

Then I become a white tail deer.  I move along parallel to their travel, gradually getting closer.  I don't look right at them for any great length of time.  I don’t hide behind bushes, sneaking up on them. Predators sneak.

I stop frequently to bend over at the waist, reaching down to the grasses with my hand, keeping my legs nearly straight.  I am feeding on the vegetation.  I swing slowly back upright with one hand at the side of my head, fingers together and pointed upward.  Then I rotate the hand at the wrist emulating a large ear pausing to listen in several directions for any predator sounds.  I act like a deer.

I get away with this deception surprisingly well, considering that I do it with a full size tripod and camera in tow.

The approach should be gradual.  Don’t run or you will see white flashes of deer tail bounding away.  Rump shots are not great grabber photographs.

By the way, think in terms of long focal length lenses for your 35mm camera.  The minimum is 200mm, with a better choice 300mm or even 400mm.  If your budget is low, try a 1.4X of 2X tele-extender.  It is a low cost way to give your lens a longer focal length, with the compromise that you lose wider f-stops.  You need faster film to make up for that.  But the longer focal length allows you to stay further away.  You don’t want to get so close that you change their behavior.

As you walk along,  remember that, if you want to be a deer and you are on the perimeter of a group of feeding deer, your job as one of the herd is to watch for predators approaching from your direction.  Stop frequently and look away from the herd.  You are not afraid of the herd, you are afraid of predators.  You are watching for predators coming toward the herd.  Only look for a second or two, then go back to normal deer browsing.  If they see you looking away too long, they may become worried, thinking you have detected a predator.

On one occasion, I was walking along next to a herd in this manner, within thirty feet of them and had blended in with them enough that they did not object to my presence.  I had been near them for about half an hour, when a couple hikers with a dog came into view from the other side of the meadow.  The deer all decided that the dog was a threat, even though it was a very small dog, and was not yet aware of the deer herd.  In an instant, the deer all began to run away from the threat in a direction that they felt was safe, toward me,  directly toward me!  I had time to snap off one shot before they passed me.  I turned around and saw the familiar flashing white tails receding in the distance.  That one shot shows  these graceful animals bounding through the air, head-on to the camera.

Keep your camera set correctly for aperture, shutter speed and focus for the conditions you expect.  Keep it mounted on the tripod aimed generally in the correct direction and adjusted high enough to allow you to quickly compose and shoot. When the perfect moment comes, the certain magic look, it will last for only a seconds at best.

I have a “grabber” that is of a fawn and doe in profile.  The doe is facing to the right, head down, not worried about me.  The fawn, standing directly between me and the doe has its body facing left with its head up looking directly at me to check me out.  The juxtaposition of their bodies, tilted in opposite directions, lead your gaze down the doe’s backbone toward her head, then back the other direction down the fawn’s backbone to those adorable, riveting eyes.  The evening sun from behind me amplified their reddish brown coats against the summer green of the meadow.

I was perhaps fifty feet away and got the shot with a 200mm lens.  I was not in their space, so the fawn went back to browsing, but that perfect alignment never happened again.  The sun got lower and dimmer and I no longer had enough light to expose my film properly.  Don’t expect a deer to hold still for you to allow you to use long exposure times.

Another approach is to go where a browsing herd is headed and wait for them to come to you.  At Big Meadows, I have been successful several times in gaining their trust by standing in the open, a hundred feet ahead of their general direction of travel and acting like I belonged there.  Once they were accustomed to my being there, I no longer presented a threat to them.  And they felt comfortable approaching me.

On one fine evening, I noticed a herd moving slowly eastward toward a bank down to a graded roadway closed to motor vehicles.  I positioned my self and camera at the near edge of the road, looking up the bank at the pink sky to the west.  As the deer arrived, they were beautifully outlined against the sunset, and, since I was in the shadow of the bank, there was no problem with direct sunlight hitting the lens and causing any flare in the picture

I have occasionally abused this technique to get a shot.  I once saw a buck with a nice rack stride into a path through some tall bushes.  I knew that trail and where it would come out, so I quickly moved to a spot where I could wait for his exit and be close enough to shoot up from ground level, looking up at him.  That angle seems to make the antlers look bigger.  Unfortunately, the camera I was using, an old mechanical 35mm SLR has a rather noisy mirror and it startled the buck when I snapped the picture.  For a moment, I felt in danger, crouched down on the ground close to a nervous animal with a dozen pointed daggers on its head.  Although he regained his composure and walked off, I still feel like I came too close to his space.

Another grabber was presented to me, so to speak.  A buck with four points in each velvet covered antler walked to some thick brush near my site in the bustling Big Meadows Campground.  He bedded down in the midst of that clump of bushes.  The leaves provided a fairly good cover for the deer, so he seemed to think that I could not see him.  I was able to approach within twenty feet of the brush without any signs of concern in the buck’s behavior.  He just laid their with his head held high, looking to my left.  I shot with a 200mm lens so that his head and antlers filled two-thirds of the frame. 

The leaves of the brush were dense so when you look at this photograph the first time, you see a mottling of green splotches in front of a brown background.  Then his eye jumps out at you, then the long bridge of his muzzle begins to assemble a connection to his nose.  You mind starts to recognize patterns that say this is a deer’s head and those bush branches are really it’s antlers.  You end up mesmerized by his calm stare at you with that one eye and your brain fills in the rest of this magnificent animal that you can’t fully see.

These photographic techniques can be learned and practiced by almost anyone.  They bring you into awareness of a small part of the natural world to a depth of understanding that can not be learned from just reading.  You have to go out and practice them; get good at them. 

But remember some important points.  You are a different species then they are.  They are smart enough to know that.  If you make them uncomfortable with your presence, they are wild animals and will react like wild animals.  You don’t want to put your own safety, that of others observers, or the deer themselves at risk.  If things seem to be getting a little shaky, back off.  Wait for some other day to get that grabber shot.

  

                        -- Bob Kuhns