Showdown

Hayden Valley in Yellowstone, in the summer. Wide open sage flats, and three pronghorn bucks spread across them, each one aware of the other two. The one on the left is moving, mid-stride, head up. The one in the middle has stopped and turned to face him. The third stands at the right edge, half turned away, watching over his shoulder. Nobody has committed to anything yet. That's the moment, and it's why I called it what I did — it plays like the last scene of a Leone western, three men in a circle and the camera cutting between them.

The problem was that in color you could barely find them. Summer sage and dry golden grass, and pronghorn are built to disappear into exactly that, tan and white against tan and white. The buck at lower right nearly vanished. Converting to black and white took the color camouflage out of the equation and left tonal separation. The white flanks and rump patches and the dark horns read clean against the gray of the brush.

The wide crop does the rest. Stretching it out puts real distance between the three of them and keeps all that empty ground in the frame, which is what makes it a standoff instead of a group portrait.