Days, weeks, perhaps months have been spent in a treestand. You have been waiting for the shot of the season and do not want to blow the opportunity when it presents itself. Out of the corner of your eye you catch a slight movement through the trees. Ever so slowly you turn your head to see the buck you have been waiting for. Three more steps and the massive buck will step into your shooting lane. The monster buck continues to walk and you are able to stop him in his track with a grunt call. You ease your bow back, settle your 20 yard pin tight behind his shoulder and finger the release. With a loud thud, the arrow connects and within minutes you are standing over the buck that has your legs shaking out of control.
To remember this deer and the hunt you can opt out and spend hundreds of dollars on taxidermy work, or you can go the route many hunters are taking to save a few bucks (no pun intended) and remember it with a quality photograph.
The mistake many hunters make it not to clean the blood off the animal before snapping some pictures. My wife has got me in the habit of carrying disinfectant wipes with me while I am hunting. Besides being good to clean my hands with, they are also good to clean the blood off the animal. Paper towels work well for this too, and in a pinch so do dry leaves. With the wound now clean you can place your weapon in front of it to help conceal it even more. How many times have you seen a photo with animal’s tongue hanging out? It does not take much effort to put the tongue back in its mouth and the photo will turn out a lot better for it.
One of the best things that can be done is to snap your pictures before field dressing if at all possible. I also like to take the photos near the kill site. This will allow viewers to get a better feeling of where the deer was harvested and it looks better than in the bed of a truck or on the shed floor.
If you have to, move the deer a few feet from the kill area so there is not visible blood on the ground. If there is anything in the area that would take the focus away from the deer, move it out of the way also.
The sun’s position is also important to get a good photo. Position yourself and the animal so that the sun is at a 45-degree angle. Always use a flash whether the sun is shining bright or not. This will prevent unwanted shadows. With the auto-focus on most of today’s new cameras it makes it easy to come out with a crisp, clear picture.
The hunter should not get directly behind the antlers of the buck. This will cause the antlers to get lost in your outline and clothing. Instead, the hunter needs to be off center a bit.
Before digital cameras many photos would have to be taken and the results of how they turned out would not be known for days until you got your prints back from the photo shop. Today, you can take as many photos as you like and it does not cost a dime for the ones you do not want. Take a lot of pictures. There is no such thing as taking too many photos.
Do not get in a hurry. Take the time to take good photos. I have talked with an outdoor writer who spends over an hour taking hundreds of pictures of his trophy. Take photos from various angles. Have the photographer at ground level with the hunter, standing off to the side, and aiming downward. Also, it is not always important, or even makes a good photo when the hunter is smiling for the camera. Some of the best photos are of when the hunter is looking at his trophy.
Clean the blood off your trophy, take pictures from many angles, and take a lot of pictures you can choose from. In the end, you will have a quality photo you will be proud to share with others and to hang on your wall of fame to show off.
