Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Mule deer are hella abundant here in Silver City. They’re frequent visitors to our yard and especially fond of our prolific apple tree. Damn, they love those apples.
But before we moved into the house, we lived in a local RV park. (It took many months after our arrival in Silver to find this house and finally move in.) Until then, happy hour was our typical trailer-living scenario—hanging out on our mobile “front porch” and decompressing from a long day.
And, also typically in that RV park, the mule deer came for a visit to browse in the swale behind our toy hauler. They’d get pretty close and part of our amusement was watching Toby trying to figure them out. He never quite knew what to do with them. So he watched along with us, in a state of constant indecision over whether he should be barking at them or trying to play with them.
On this particular evening, I got lucky—I’d brought my camera to happy hour. And as these two does began to have a little cuddle, I didn’t even have to get out of my chair to manage the shot. Which would have scared them off anyway. (And fortunately Toby remained chill and didn’t startle them either.)
From the luck standpoint, I was at the right place at the right time and it happened to be one of the evenings I made the effort to bring my camera to happy hour. From the preparedness-breeds-opportunity standpoint, knowing how to work quickly and take advantage of a fleeting situation allowed me to tap into muscle memory when I needed it unexpectedly.
And for all of the hard work it can be to craft an image, I’ll take the “easy” win on this one. But it’s a reminder my skills have slipped lately and why I need to get back to regular photography practice.
Use it or lose it, right?
I eventually worked some digital art magic on the original image to create this piece. You can find prints and other merch in my art store.
Cheers, friends!
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly theme each Saturday.
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