Wide-angle White-tailed Deer - Behind the Scenes

White-tailed Deer. Gear: Canon 1D mk IV, Sigma 12-24 lens

I have never spent much time, or had much luck for that matter, photographing White-tailed Deer. So when my friend Dave Gignac started posting great photos of tame deer he was photographing in a city park near his home, I jumped at the chance to join him for a morning. The cool thing about this situation is that the deer were being regularly fed by people and had become extraordinarily approachable at times. This was an opportunity to do things a bit differently, so I opted for wide-angle and medium telephoto lenses instead of the usual super-telephotos typically used for wildlife photography.

When I met Dave before sunrise for our photo shoot, I had high expectations - and they were far exceeded. The deer came in as predicted and at times were within minimum focusing distance of my ultra-wide angle lens. It's so much fun to be this close to animals. Here's a short behind the scenes video of that photo shoot, taken with a GoPro HD Hero video camera that I usually have along with me just for these kinds of moments:

Ever since being awestruck by Jim Brandenburg's famous photo of a wolf peeking from behind a tree, I always get excited by opportunities to capture this style of photo.  

White-tailed Deer. Gear: Canon 1D mk IV, Sigma 70-200/2.8