Denali Dall Sheep 1

On my first day in Denali National Park, I encountered a large group of Dall sheep up the side of a mountain. I grabbed my camera equipment, including my 500mm lens, and hiked over 1500′ up to them. As I approached the group, they became aware of my presence but did not run away. I was unsure how close they would allow me to get, but they seemed unconcerned by my presence and continued foraging for grasses. I got close enough to photograph individual animals isolated against a clean background. Eventually, I moved in close enough to photograph this nice head-on portrait of a big male looking down on me. I created this image with my Canon 7D, Canon 500mm f4 IS lens, and Canon 1.4X tele-converter. This image is a single-exposure which required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.