This is my first blog post in where I will go over some of the things that will be talked about on these blogs. I am going to TRY to do blogs for most days that I go out to shoot images (whether or not I got a good image is another story).

In these blogs I will include:

Location(s)
Weather and time of day
Gear used (I will also use amazon affiliate links with the gear, this way if you click on the link and make a purchase through the link then I will get a small % of sales. That would definitely help me out!)
How I approached the scene and decided on my composition and settings for the image (If there was one)
And whatever else I end up including on there.

Hopefully you will all enjoy my rambling as I was never that great with writing! haha

So with that being said, here goes the first post in where I will talk about my attempt at getting an image of a deer.

I was pondering the thought the night before of whether or not I would be willing to wake up at 4am to try for some images. I set my alarm for 4am and sure enough I was up at 4:15 after hitting snooze a few times. I grabbed my camera bag , some tea, and my trusty YETI rambler and headed out the door. I arrived at Rock Cut State Park in Rockford,IL around 5am,just in time for sunrise. I parked my car, took a quick look at the trail map and plotted my course. I have seen deer here before in one of the meadows along the forest edges, so I had a general idea of where I wanted to go. Heading out I had to make sure I was very quiet during my quest for deer since they have extremely sensitive hearing.

It was close to 5:30am and already getting close to 70 degrees when I reached the forest edge, it was going to be a hot one today. To my disappointment there were no deer in sight at the forest edge. I continued on to the next trail loop and took that until it looped around again. This time however I caught a glimpse of a deer jumping through the woods and although I wasn't able to get an image of the deer at this point, I was happy to know I was in the right place! I stopped for a quick tea break and a I continued on the trail to the point where I knew it came to the meadow again. I could then see the little deer peaking through the trees sitting in the meadow eating some grass. I got out my camera, a Sony A7riii with the Sony 70-200mm F4 G lens and prepared myself to be ready for a shot. I saw the deer peering at me from between a small opening in the tree branches and they just happened to frame the deer perfectly. I used the silent shutter option on my camera and focused on the deer at almost the full 200mm. I was very happy with the image taken there and decided to press my luck and move a bit further up the trail. When I got to the meadow the deer was still grazing and I managed to snap off a few more before it scurried back into the woods and disappeared.

Overall I was very happy with this morning trip, but it was nearing 80 degrees and I hadn't eaten breakfast yet so this trip was over. I headed back to the car and headed home, happy with the images I had taken. Let me know if you enjoy these as well as my blog. If you do you are welcome to share this!

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First post/Deer Spotting