Ken Papaleo: X Marks the Shot: Elk in the fall, Evergreen, Colorado.

"X Shot" information.

Camera - Canon EOS 5D Mark II

ISO - 400

Shutter - 1/2500 sec

F/stop - 4.5

Lens - 70/200 zoom

LOCATION.

1. Evergreen Lake is 20 minutes south on the Evergreen Parkway, off I-70.

2. This location is usually good for some kind of photo, wildlife, boating, fishing, ice skating and ice

fishing are some of the activities that go on here, depending on the time of year.

CHALLENGE.

With this activity real close to my house, I go there often for a shoot. In the mornings and evenings your chances of seeing wildlife are pretty good. I knew a big herd of elk where in this area for the last couple of days so I went to check it out one late afternoon. Now, I have photographed elk in Evergreen area for a long time so my challenge ever-time, is to find something I haven't seen before. So that was the challenge again this time.

SOLUTION.

I found the herd as soon as I reached Evergreen Lake. They were messing up traffic while crossing hwy 74. After photographing for awhile, two things of interest caught my eye. First was that they swim, I have never seen that before and the second was after swimming to the other side of the stream, they shook like dogs and water went everywhere. It was pretty easy to get images of them swimming and I liked the shots. To show them shaking water, I would have to get in a back-lit situation. By doing this, the water would be very bright and stand out nicely. Using a very high shutter speed would stop any movement. Now the exposure would be tricky. First thing was to find a spot where I could be shooting in the shade, this would stop lens-flare. Nothing worked so I took off my Loveland Ski Area ball cap and held it out in front of my lens, finding the spot where the cap would cast it's shadow on my lens. I took my reading off the glowing water in the stream, then waited for the shaking begin. Most of the time, my challenge with shooting elk falls short or doesn't happen at all. But today I got two new images that I haven't shot before.

OTHER PHOTOS FROM THIS SHOOT.