Bison Safari at Fort Whyte Alive

On the evening of August 24, I did something I've thought about doing for awhile. I signed up to go on the bison safari at Fort Whyte. It was a good, first experience.

The windows in the small tour bus are fixed so that they (understandably) can't be opened and when the bus pulls up beside the herd, the door is opened and people can go to the door one to three at a time to take photos. (Note: The air conditioning on the bus wasn't working, and the temperature was 30 degrees Celsius, so our time was shortened from the planned 90 minutes for the well being of us passengers.) It was pretty much a case of shooting straight ahead and also me trying to not monopolize time at the door. The herd seemed to be on the move during our time in their enclosure. Each time we pulled up beside the herd they were either already walking or they begin to walk. They also stayed together. This meant that capturing images of individual bison was not easy. My approach then at the door was to capture a fair number of images in a short amount of time and then see what I got when I got back home. I also noticed that, after the first few stops, I was the only one repeatedly going to the door (and I was seated in the first row). I would sit on the bottom step and shoot. I would frequently look up to see if anybody wanted to come down onto the steps to shoot but after the first few stops there was nobody. I seemed to be only one of two people with a DSLR camera (everybody else had smartphones) and I was the only one with a zoom lens. (Canon f2.8 L 70-200mm, with a 1.4X lens extender at times. At other times I used my Canon f2.8 L 24-70mm lens).

For the image of the three bison farther below, I would use a higher aperture in the future to allow for more depth of field, but hindsight is 20/20.

I look forward to going back again. Next time, I will begin to shoot a lot of images right from the onset rather than waiting for one. Also, as I believe is good practice in photography, I will continue to arrive sufficiently early enough to get a seat near the front of the bus (i.e. what I assess to be a preferred spot for the capturing of images before it is not available due to crowds).