The quest for the perfect picture.

For the last four weeks, I’ve been traveling around the Dakotas. It is a beautiful part of the country. In my travels, I’ve seen some amazing and unique landscape. I often pull over and get out of the truck just to admire the view. Now I don’t consider myself a landscape photographer. I just don’t think I’m very good at it but I have great respect for nature and landscapes. While I was driving through Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I pulled over just to look out over a beautiful landscape. I looked over a green valley with a somewhat dry river flowing through it. There were trees and rock formations in the background. It was simply breathtaking. In the distance there were about a dozen bison. They were quite some distance from me and looked a bit like brown blobs until I looked through my binoculars.

As I was standing there, a photo popped into my head. The photo would showcase the beauty of the badlands landscape along with one of its most enduring figures, a bison. So for the last month, I’ve been on this quest to create the perfect photo. It hasn’t happened yet but I’m not giving up. Actually, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the quest. Wildlife is unpredictable. No matter how many times I ask the bison to move a little to the right or left, pick up their heads or pause, they just have not cooperated.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

In this picture, I love the pose of the bison but frankly the landscape is just boring and the light is too harsh for my taste. I was in Badlands National Park a few days for sunset. It took a little time for me to find the bison. I was feeling lucky. I found them with a background I loved. This might be it but alas it didn’t quite work out. They stayed just below a ridge and I was only able to get the top half of the bison. So the quest continues. Will the photo materialize? Maybe or maybe not. It’s the quest that is the fun part.

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Keep exploring,

Wendy