Here a couple of shots I took on the road to Yosemite National Park in December.  I was playing with long shutter speeds while we drove.  I was shooting from the back seat.  Unfortunately, the road was a bit too rough to get a good shot with sharp dash lights.  I tried bracing the camera against the roof of the car, but that only helped a little.  The second two where hand-held as we passed through a tunnel.  The first is looking forward as we entered the tunnel.  The second is through the rear window just before we exited.  I really love the forward-looking one.

This was the last animal we photographed at Triple D during the Outdoor Photography workshop at RMSP.  So, this is the last batch of animal shots I’ll be posting from the summer.  I still need to get caught up with posting images from the Adventure Photography workshop I took next.  Then, pictures taken from the Advanced Intensive portion of the summer, after that.  I’ll get caught up eventually since I haven’t been out shooting much lately.

These guys (there were two of them) were the toughest animals to photograph at Triple D.  They are extremely quick and they never stop moving.  It was next to impossible to focus on one of them and shoot before they had moved.  We had to basically pick a point, focus on it, and then try to snap the shutter when the racoon moved into it.  So I’ve got a lot of shots that are "almost" in focus…which means they’re useless.  The goal is to get the eyes in focus.  I’ve got some with noses, some with ears, but only a few with the eyes.

I was within 10 feet of this leopard. It walked down by us at one point and crossed in front of us just a few feet away.  It was very cool.

These leopards are very rare in the U.S.  If you wanted to go photograph one at the Triple D game farm by yourself, it would cost you $2000 per hour.  Or you could enroll in one of the "Wildlife Up Close" workshops at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography for about $1500 and get to shoot multiple animals for a whole lot less as part of the group.