“Once Engulfed.”
A curious whitetail buck with golden fall colors as a background, that just minutes before he was engulfed in, comes in closer to Lance's photo blind as he shoots this sequence of photos. In the days before mirrorless cameras and silent electronic shutters, he knows you heard him complaining about how wary bucks would spook at the sound of his Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera firing off like a machine gun, but sometimes he's able to trick a buck into thinking it’s part of another sound that’s unthreatening to him. In this photo, he pressed the shutter button on his camera very slowly, and would synchronize blowing a short grunt from his grunt call in his mouth, each time he fired off his camera to help camouflage the sound of the camera’s mirror flipping up and down and shutter opening and closing. Most bucks will still spook from it, but sometimes others, like this 8-point beauty with extras, will find the grunt/click combo confusing enough that they’ll stand for a few seconds longer than normal, before blasting away. He has used sound camouflaging in many ways over the years, with some more effective than others. So remember, there’s other ways to camouflage yourself other than camouflage clothing and masking scents. You can often times camouflage your sounds in the woods, as well.
📸 by Lance Krueger Photography @lance_krueger