Nature, In Shades Of Gray

I bet you thought I'd abandoned my photographic nature walks and hikes. Only temporarily. My hobbies happen in phases and I'm still in my writing phase right now. But sometimes the phases overlap and it was so nice out this evening that I couldn't resist a walk. (A nice reprieve from the rainy, hot, muggy, buggy weather of late.) For a challenge I decided to only post photos from this evening's walk in black and white. Man, sometimes I almost wish I'd never seen the works of Ansel Adams. They've made such an impact on me that it's sort of compromised my own artistic vision. Instead of something original, my stuff just looks like retarded clones of his amazing photos. It's still a fun hobby though. Here goes nothing...

These were taken on my family's property this evening.














See the deer above? It's sorta hard to see so I'll post another in color:


I was taking photos of flowers alongside a trail when a doe showed up with her family just behind me. I counted 2 small buck and 3 doe. I stayed in place and just turned the tripod around to face them and starting taking pics and video. The lead doe became aggressive towards me, a behavior I've never seen. Our property is part of a major deer corridor and I watch them out back almost every night. The only time I ever saw a hint of aggression was during the fall rut when the bucks were fearless. Anyway, this doe started making strange vocal sounds, stomping the ground, and charging at me. She got close but never closed the gap. It was obvious that my presence startled her and she felt the need to protect her family. Eventually they all took off. Unfortunately I didn't start rolling video until after she was finished with her displays of aggression. All I have are pics and videos of her staring me down. It's something to keep in mind though - although Bambi is cute, deer are still wild, unpredictable animals and we need to be cautious of them.