" A Little Help Here " GTNP

" A Little Help Here " GTNP

The Story (First he was OK) I was in the Grand Tetons and saw a herd of Bison so I pulled over to photograph them as I wanted some baby bison shots..As I was photographing them, they started to drift away from my position. So I got into my car drove past and ahead of them and proceeded to photograph them coming towards me.. (For anyone who has photographed bison, you know that sometimes they could care less if you are there and sometimes they want nothing to do with you) well this was one of those cases , So the Bull looked at me and started to turn back along with the herd to where we started. Well as they headed back a car pulls up at the original spot I had been. So this stopped the herd in their tracks..The Bull looks at the newcomer,turns his head and looks in my direction and with kind of a “Oh Hell” suddenly turns and looks to his back where this fence is.. The thought popped in my head watching his body language, that he is going to jump the fence. I no sooner got that thought ,than like a bullet he was up and over, and the herd without question started following like lemmings.. I had never seen this in my life,(now I know why some of the fences are broken in the middle when I drive by them) so I started photographing them jumping… the babies just kind of jumped thru the gaps in the barb wire strands.. when it came to the last mother and child. she jumped over and the baby lunged thru the middle, except the one strand caught him across the forehead and pushed him back.. He looked at the space trying to figure out what happend and tried again, same result. now he starts running back and forth crying as he can see the herd on the other side but for reasons he does not understand, can not get thru.. so he looks at the fence, and I get the impression that he is going to try and jump it.. So now I am trying to figure how am I going to time tripping the shutter for all of this.. Sure enough he goes for it, but he gets hung up on the top and just teethers there until he finally topples over.. Sorry for the long narative but it was an interesting story to outline just what went on as I usually sell this as a solo image as it is here or I sell a 3 or 4 print series of the bull, mother, and baby jumping and hung up. people always ask me, ” Did he make it over or is he alright?” I never thought to photograph him falling over as at the time the shot for me was this one. It was only later while going through the images I started to see a series pattern that later became a triptych or 4 print series. At a later time I will upload the triptych of these images that I usually sell. I was lucky enough that the producers of the TV show “Without a Trace” bought three of them. Hope you enjoy the image..it is one of those Chance Favors the Prepared Mind kind of shots..In all the years of photographing I had never seen Bison jump like that..I am really fortunate that I was there that day to withness it..

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