I love this scene from The Wire:
Lester’s line is something I say to myself when it feels like my work is boring or silly or a pain in the donkey: This is the job.
I’m not sure how many times I said this to myself in a blacked-out blind in the hills of South Dakota, but the scene replaying in my head reminded me that whatever happens behind the camera; I asked for it. This is what I want to do. But even the things we ask for we don’t really understand until we experience them. I am adding antelope hunting to the list of things I didn’t really understand. How can you describe fighting off a hundred wasps? What about sitting in a chair so long you think your body is shaped like the letter Z? It makes it all the more confusing when the hunter doesn’t have a chance to take an antelope. Three days of fourteen hour sits in the sweltering heat and sweat and silence with one rule; don’t leave the blind.
By don’t leave the blind I mean don’t leave the blind. For anything. Guide’s rules. Fortunately for me, and the hunter, we found a bit more excitement in one location than we bargained for. In the hunting world, the sign of a good trip is not always whether you take an animal, but who you’re with, where you go, and the stories you tell. I would have loved to see an antelope come to water and give an open shot, but as they say, that’s why they call it hunting.
Enjoy the images, enjoy the stories, and most of all, enjoy every day; even if it’s ninety-six degrees in the blind.
Awesome pics!