KING OF THE ASPENS

Grand Tetons, Wyoming, 2023

I spent days deep in the aspen forests of the Grand Tetons, sitting with this magnificent bull moose. All day long I'd sit leaning against a tree, watching him bed down in the tall grasses as autumn sunlight filtered through the fluttering aspens. Every few hours he'd rise, graze for a few minutes, wander over to a trickling mountain stream for a drink, then bed back down, disappearing into the grass.

What amazed me was how easily such an enormous animal could vanish. You could walk right past on a nearby trail and never know he was there. His massive rack blended into the forest like fallen branches among the trees. All that size, all that power, hidden in plain sight.

So I waited with him for days, knowing that when he finally stood, I'd have only a few minutes to make a photograph.

I typically use those big, long white lenses so familiar to wildlife photographers, but deep in the aspens this was a different kind of photography. It was intimate. I was shooting with a standard-length lens, surrounded by dense trees and some of the most challenging light imaginable, waiting for the forest to come alive.

Watching him move through those aspens was extraordinary. The smaller trees and willows he'd simply ram with his antlers, knocking them out of his way. His power was unmatched. But the larger, established trunks were another story. He knew exactly how to turn his enormous rack sideways, down to the centimeter, slipping perfectly between trees that looked far too close together. He moved through this forest with an instinctive understanding of every obstacle in his path.

Then one warm autumn afternoon, after hours of sitting with him, he rose from the grass and started walking straight toward me. I was right in his path, standing against the aspens. He moved effortlessly through the dense trunks, coming closer and closer.

I lifted my camera and held down the shutter as he walked right past me, completely relaxed, as though I wasn't even there.

This was his forest. I was just a spectator.

He was the king of this place.

Limited Edition 95 / Artist Proof 5

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