Tag Archives: elk

Amateur

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A young elk bull with stunted antlers in Yellowstone National Park

amateur |ˈamətər, -ˌtər, -ˌCHo͝or, -CHər|

noun
a person who engages in a pursuit, esp. a sport, on an unpaid basis.
• a person considered contemptibly inept at a particular activity: that bunch of stumbling amateurs.

adjective
engaging or engaged in without payment; nonprofessional: an amateur archaeologist | amateur athletics.
• inept or unskillful: it’s all so amateur!

DERIVATIVES
amateurism |-ˌrizəm|noun

ORIGIN late 18th cent.: from French, from Italian amatore, from Latin amator ‘lover,’ from amare ‘to love.’

Apple’s built-in dictionary

The term amateur has both positive and negative connotations. When it comes to photography I love being an amateur, and I love it precisely because of the origins of the term: I get to photograph what I love.

While on the way back to my hotel in Yellowstone, I came across a bunch of photographers pulled off to the side of the road to photograph a herd of elk. I took a variety of pictures (including the picture at the top of my tribute to Steve Jobs) and was about to wrap up when I noticed a young elk bull down a ways from where everyone else was. I walked down to him and realized why no one else was photographing him: his antlers were stunted.

I have a soft spot for animals who have more to overcome, so I settled in to spend the rest of the dying light photographing him.

Whether due to diet or disease or genetics, the poor thing wasn’t exactly photogenic compared not only to the dominant bull but even to the other young bulls in the herd. He was mostly grazing but occasionally raised his head and sniffed the air, so I positioned my tripod so that if he raised his head again, his face would be set against the strip of yellow plants behind him. And not only did he raise his head again, but as if on cue he even looked right at me.

You’re beautiful to me, little one.

A Start at Goodbye

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A close-up view of the face of a young male elk in Yellowstone National Park

I cried when he died.

I was at work in the middle of the afternoon when I realized I had been staring absent-mindedly into my monitor for quite some time. I was worn out, stretched too thin, and suddenly I just had to get out of the office. I went home.

As I walked in the door Ellie ran up to greet me as she always does, and she brightened my mood as she always does. Grinning from ear to ear, tail wagging, dancing in joy. We played until she tired. I went into my room and opened my laptop and learned that Steve Jobs passed away.

I’ve thought about Steve frequently the past fifteen years, for a number of reasons. Almost daily the past five, because of his Stanford speech. I don’t remember when I first read it, but it has haunted and inspired me ever since.

… for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Steve Jobs in his 2005 Stanford Commencement address

It was this quote that troubled me the most. While I like my job and the people I work with (I’ve been at my company for nearly 15 years, if that’s any indication), I’ve never loved my job the way Jobs clearly loved his. But until I can find a job that will pay me to spend my days hiking and tossing hedgehogs and handing out belly rubs, I guess I never will.

But I took his advice to heart in how I spend my free time, and if you look back through my hiking journals you’ll see these are the years when I started planning at least one big hiking trip per year. When I started getting up before dawn despite my night owl nature and heading to Ridgefield over and over and over again. When I stopped worrying over the cost and bought the big lens that has delighted me so. When I learned to keep an eye on those journals and watch for when the gap to my last outing grew too large, a warning sign I had slipped into a funk, and celebrating my favorite things through photography became a way to work myself out of it.

One of the ways a man I never met changed my life. I’ll miss you Steve.

Biding His Time

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A young elk bull scratches its fur in a tall meadow at Yellowstone National Park

This young bull was hanging out on the periphery of the harem of a much older bull. It kept a respectful distance and never sought to challenge the old fellow, despite his exhaustion at the end of the rut. The older bull was more concerned about bugling rivals further off than this youngster.

Holy Smokes Boolie, It’s Cold!

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A bull elk calls out from a snowy meadow during the fall rut in Yellowstone National Park

I agree, Mr. Elk, I agree. We’ve had an unusual spate of sunny days the past couple of weeks. Sunny and cold days, although the clouds and rain returned this weekend and it should be back to normal this week.

I came across this bull elk late one evening on a snowy day in Yellowstone in the fall of 2007. I’m always a bit nervous driving in snow on my hiking trips since I’m traveling alone and not used to the winter conditions, but the snow wasn’t too heavy on this day (although a heavier storm arrived soon enough).