Badger Them with Badgers

Wanna see pictures of badgers?  Do you wanna see pictures of badgers.. really .. wanna see my pictures of a badgers… hehehehe – thought I would have some fun and “badger” you a bit – to keep with the theme in all.  In truth, it is December which is my designated time to go back and try to get caught up on all the stragglers  that I didn’t get to over the course of the year.  Sad to say, that time machine now takes us back to April 2011 at a Wildlife Prairie Park shoot.  If you recall, Badgers made their debut last April (2013) (link here).  Admittedly, not my best work at time due to some harsh lighting and eek missed focus points.  The RAWs from this shoot were at first glance not that stellar either, but it was worth a try in the digital darkroom.

If you saw the originals you would understand how much work it took to get to this point.  After a direct comparison, I much prefer this set to the previous.  On retrospect, could have gone a little bit more darker, but not sure if there was any more left in the RAW format.  Those claws still make me shudder every time I see them.  Haven’t seen rippers like that since battling the Snapper (link here). The reference sites declare their predators to be coyotes and eagles – seriously?  what dumbass coyote (obviously not a fan) would have the nerve to take on one of these beasts?  Oh, forgot, those wusses only take on the enemy when they have the numbers – sneaky bastards.  An eagle might be able to grab a cub but there is no way they could lift off with this specimen in their talons.

This evidence does cry foul on the previous post statement that we had never seen the Badgers out before – there was apparently one other time they were out.  My humble apologies for leading you astray – I’d say Mr. photoblogger needs to stay on top of his shoots in the future.  Of the three shots I worked up, the following is my favorite for one simple aspect – the tooth.  Just seems to add that extra element that draws your attention away from the claws.  Surprised it wasn’t more of a sharper fang.

A quick check of Google Images did produce this picture (link here) which does show it carries some nasty looking teeth.  There were no other  shots in the my set that showed any more of the teeth.  Next visit we’ll see if we can zoom in on those.  For now, all you get is a little tease.

Lastly we have the Badger dude working on that upper body strength.  Lift that branch.. feeeeel the burrrrrrn.

You can see a little of that harsh light coming in on the bottom edge.  The tree provided enough cover to cut most of that out but for some reason I ended up over-exposing during the shoot.  The darkroom took most of that out for the save, but I have to force myself to check the histogram in the future.  More diligence in the field will make for far less time in the darkroom (and maybe .. just maybe I’ll be able to post shots sooner than 21 months after the shoot!)

Oh well, photography is a journey and I can still see the starting gates.  Time to go watch the Voice finals ooops.. I mean read some Nikon manuals.