Whispering
Two bison stand head to head in the snow, close enough that their breath must be mixing in the cold. One gazes past the camera, half-lidded and unbothered; the other looks straight into the lens, damp beard hanging with melted frost, wary and alert. Their coats — burnt umber shading to gold where the light catches the ruff — fill nearly the whole frame, so close that the herd behind them dissolves into soft color. It reads less like a wildlife photograph than a quiet, private exchange the viewer has been allowed to witness.
Artist Statement
I didn't plan this shot so much as wait for it. Bison move as a herd, but they don't always act like one — every so often, two animals break from the group's rhythm and turn toward each other, and for a moment it looks almost like conversation. I wanted to get close enough that the photograph felt like eavesdropping rather than observing: no wide shot of the herd, no context beyond the two of them and the snow.
The title, Whispering, comes from that closeness — the way their heads tilt toward one another, breath fogging in the cold, as if something is being said that isn't meant to carry. This image belongs to Stormborn, an ongoing series built from animals holding steady inside hard weather — the cold, the snow, the conditions most creatures wait out. Where the desert work is about scale and light across vast stone, Stormborn is about proximity and endurance: getting close enough, and patient enough, to be let into a moment like this one.