Often when spotting wildlife, the instinct is to get as close as possible without disturbing the animal. I love to take those photos (see the next one in this gallery). But what you miss when doing that is showing the natural environment in which that animal roams. Animal portraits are beautiful, but even when done in the wild, they can end up looking something like a zoo shot.

At the northern end of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone, with 560mm of lens on my camera, I backed off to 365mm to include the sage covered hillside in the frame, turning the photo into a study of the environment that just happens to have a big horn sheep in the frame. This is something I plan to do more of in the future as I find these photos very satisfying, especially when viewing as a large print.

Canon EOS 5D, Canon 100-400mm f/4.5/5.6L IS @ 400mm with Canon 1.4X Teleconverter III - effective focal length - 365mm, 1/500 sec @f/8, ISO equiv 640, Calumet 8000 Carbon Fiber Tripod, Gitzo G1276 Ballhead