The Story Behind The Image - Running Deer

This image evokes a bit of mystery. I am often asked ‘how did you get that image?’. It is such a fun story that I have to share it with you here. Read on for the story behind this image and my two big surprises!

The image

The story

“Running Deer” was a big surprise for me in two ways.

As a member of the NH Plein Air Painters group, I participate in group outings to paint on site in fun places around the local area. On this day, we were at an Elk farm. Elk are not at all common in New Hampshire so this day was a real treat.

The Elk were at the far end of a field. It was not ideal for painting in that the Elk were hard to see and thus hard to paint. It is a common practice for painters to take reference photos for their own use. That was my goal on this beautiful June day.

There I was with my camera lens zoomed all the way out – focused on the far end of the field – when out of the corner of my eye, something moved. I turned my head and there was a beautiful young deer, running out from the trees into the field to my left and very close to me! She was surprise #1 of this story.

Time was not on my side as taking photos of a running animal is not easy even when totally prepared for the movement. I quickly zoomed back in, reset my camera settings, and snapped pictures as I followed the deer across the grass with my camera. She passed right in front of me and ran off into the trees all in a matter of seconds.

Imagine my excitement when I got home, looked at the photos and found that some of the images were actually in focus - nice and sharp! Yeah! This was surprise #2 as I was certain they’d all be a blur.

Something special had to be done with the images of this beautiful deer. Do you love animals? I do and I had to memorialize this moment.

The technique

There wasn’t a lot of thought to technique at the time of taking the photos other than resetting the camera and trying to keep up with the deer. Once you get used to manual camera settings, it becomes almost automatic to do what you have to do for the scene that is in front of you. Keeping my camera on auto would probably have worked well here too.

At home, I reviewed the photos on Adobe Lightroom on my computer. I decided to create a composite image – one image that merges multiple images – to convey the excitement I felt as the deer ran across the field. I have created several ‘animals in motion’ type composites and I knew this deer would be perfect for this type of image.

Adobe Photoshop helped me make this happen with layer masks. It’s getting easier every day to do this type of compositing.  Here are the three photos that I merged together.  You can learn how to do this with any app that has masking and layers.

Have you ever been surprised when taking photos?

Have you ever had something completely unexpected happen when using your camera? Where you have to quickly react and adjust? Or after you take some photos, have you gotten a big surprise while reviewing them? How did you feel about it? Was it a good surprise? Or a not so good surprise? I’ve had lots of both and making them into beautiful images is the best possible outcome.

Are you interested in learning how to create composites? Let me know. I’m keeping a list of what you are interested in for future blog posts, tip sheets, and course topics.

If you’d like to see this image on products, check out my online shop.

Thank you for reading the Story Behind the Image - Running Deer. I hope you enjoyed hearing about this photograph of a beautiful animal.