Photographing moose in Alaska for four days was an incredible adventure. While we were scheduled to shoot Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the weather in Anchorage had other plans for us. Stormy weather with rain deluges and high winds kept us from venturing out to shoot at all on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, the weather calmed down and we walked into the No Name Valley in Chugach State Park. Opportunities for seeing moose increased on each successive day and the photography just kept getting better. Friday started off with a two hour wait while we watched a single bull moose resting in the dry grass. It was colder than the other days and my beaver mittens made an appearnce. But, when the bull had our eyes on finally got up, several other bulls and a few females started to interact so we had about four hours of non-stop shooting until it was time to leave.
One of the bulls approached the edge of Campbell Creek exactly opposite where we had positioned ourselves in the tundra on the other side. We were so close that I didn’t need the reach that my 500mm lens offered. I had stuffed my 70-200mm f/4 lens in my jacket pocket so I swapped lenses. My new 500mm f/5.6 lens is small enough that it slipped easily into the inside pocket of my Gale Force jacket. I shot this at 190mm.
