I was hiking when I encountered four "bachelor bulls" on the Tabletop, a high, flat-topped butte in the northwest corner of the park. After we had exchanged greetings and established a comfortable working distance, I sat down to watch them. Sure enough, they interrupted their grazing from time to time for a friendly head-butt. Nothing serious. Just ongoing testing and establishing dominance. By mid-summer, when they go into the rut, their fights will take on real intensity. Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan.

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© James R. Page - all rights reserved

Tags:   Plains Bison Buffalo Bison bison Tatonka bulls three head butting hoarfrost frosty cold wild winter prairie Grasslands National Park Saskatchewan Canada

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At Chaplin Lake, Saskatchewan.

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Tags:   Plains Prickly-pear Opuntia polyacantha wildflower flower cactus yellow beautiful macro three wild prairie near Chaplin Lake Saskatchewan Canada

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From the film archives: three rams confer in the back country of Jasper National Park. I use the term "back country" loosely - meaning that I didn't shoot this from my car or beside a road. I had to hike to get there. But it wasn't very far, only an hour or so up the trail to Wilcox Pass, and then picking my way off-trail, pulled by the sound of bashing heads. A rarity: rutting behaviour in late September! That night it snowed. The advancing cold front must have made all the sheep a little antsy, but seven or eight of them tolerated my presence for an hour at close range.

Back in the days of film, we had to work with very slow emulsions, ie. low ISO numbers. I shot this on Fujichrome Provia 100, push processed one stop to ISO 200. Today I can use my D800 at ISO 2000 with better results than this, but those were the times and this was the outcome.

Photographed in Jasper National Park, Alberta. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 1998 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Tags:   Bighorn Sheep Ovis canadensis wildlife animal mammal ungulate sheep three horns rut rutting feisty male ram display dominance wild mountain wilderness Rocky Mountains Canadian Rockies Jasper National Park Alberta Canada film scan Fujichrome :Provia 100 push processed one stop push ISO 200 slide transparency 1988 copyrighted James R. Page

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Some young kids were playing in a Vancouver street when I wandered by with my camera. They shouted, "Mister! Mister! Take our picture!" - and I did. In fact, I shot a dozen or so, mostly from my knees, to get them at eye level. But I ended up liking this one best - the first shot - looking down at them. Why? Probably because they look smaller and more vulnerable from the lofty height of an adult. As you likely can tell from their clothes, we weren't in an affluent part of town. Life won't be easy for any of them.

There wee more than three - I think there were seven or eight in all, and they swirled around me, excited to be receiving adult attention. I have no idea how I managed to isolate three in this frame! I've always found the three different expressions interesting. The little boy front and centre looks happy and trusting; the boy behind him, not so much. Maybe fearful, or just puzzled. The little girl looks like she is reserving judgement.

I would hope that they all went on to have good lives, but I'll never know, and the odds are against them. It's a sad photo. Exactly three years later, I found myself up in Whitehorse, Yukon, sliding into a job as a "youth service worker", in a position to make a difference in children's lives - at least once in a while. It was a job that brought me some satisfaction, and over the next three decades I had stints in family counselling, in a psychiatric hospital for children, and in a youth shelter. Most of these were casual or part time gigs, leaving lots of free time to pursue photography. The latter, especially nature and wildlife photography, tends to be a solitary sport, so this other work probably kept my life balanced, kept me engaged in my community.

Photographed somewhere on the east side of Vancouver, BC (Canada); scanned from the original Tri-X negative. I used a Pentax Spotmatic with 24mm lens. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©1979 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Tags:   kids children three street indigenous east side B & W black and white spontaneous play innocence 24mm wide angle looking down Pentax Spotmatic film scan Tri-X ISO 400 1979 Vancouver BC British Columbia Canada copyrighted James R. Page

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Three friends at 427 East 20th Ave, Vancouver, British Columbia. Scanned from the original Kodachrome 25 slide, July 1976.

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Tags:   three friends Vancouver BC British Columbia Canada 1976 Kodachrome

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