Bull’s Eye!
Mongolia, 2014
After a few hours at the Eagle Festival, I began to feel an affinity for some of the men. I liked this man. He always had a pleasant expression on his face and though he noticed my lens trained on him as he chatted with friends, he didn’t try to avoid me.
He had that lovely fox fur suit…pants and jacket and neck piece plus hat. I’ve always wanted a fox fur coat but I live in Southern California and I could never justify buying one. I had my chance to buy one at a reasonable price in Mongolia. The tourist shop was filled with furs: hats, coats and even wolf skins to hang on the wall of your man-cave.
Getting a sharp photo of the hunters competing was paramount. I kept my ISO high to allow me to shoot at near 1/1000th of a second. We were pretty far from the action. (I’m no good at estimating distance so I can’t tell you how far.) I had a 28 to 300mm zoom and I shot this at 200mm. I had a fear of the hunter riding out of my frame…that happened. Thanks to my d800, I was able to crop this and still have plenty of pixels. Not only can I see the hunter’s pleased expression, but I can see his mobile phone that is attached to his belt!