JBattDesign Photography - jbattdesignphoto

The young hunter stood ankle deep in soggy mud.

His worn out, scuffed Timberland hiking boots were caked with grit, sand, dust and dirt from hundreds of miles of trudging through every terrain known to man. He wore a ripped up old army trench jacket that was his father's, in fact very similar to the one his grandfather had worn during the invasion of Berlin in world war II. Its musky old leather smell, faded grey olive-drab color, ghostly remnants of patches and rips and tears made him feel like a seasoned veteran. He loved its every threadbare rip, gash and tear as if they were old familiar scars on his own body. It had kept his father warm and dry for almost forty years, and it now was keeping the young intrepid adventurer warm and dry.

Underneath it, he looked about ready to embark on an African safari through the Kalahari desert. He was wearing rangy, threadbare cutoff cargo shorts, stained with mud, sweat, blood and God only knows what else. His pockets bulged with SD memory cards, batteries, film canisters, a Swiss Army Knife, a Leatherman, extra shoelaces, a small first aid kit, some band-aids, antibacterial spray, bug repellant, tiny telescoping tripods....anything else he could think of that he would need in the field. In his back pocket is his trusty shooting log and field journal, which he has never written in. He keeps a pen with him though; just in case. A sandy-colored beige shooting vest is draped across his scrawny shoulders, itself reeking of sweat, wet grass and bug repellant.

He feels like he hasn't showered in days, or maybe even weeks? Who knows. Who cares. He is the rugged outdoorsman, the man of the forest, the American Pioneer, the retired Boy Scout. He loves this kind of life, and who is he trying to impress? There is not another human being to be found for miles.

His cell phone does not get any reception, his Satellite GPS unit keeps losing its signal. On his head he wears a Desert Storm camouflage soldier hat to cover his filthy sweat-matted hair,making him look for all the world like a cross between Gilligan from Gilligan's Island and Crocodile Dundee. Over this is draped a makeshift duck blind; an old vinyl army print shower curtain which he slit, hacked and slashed the hell out of with a box cutter to make it look like those camouflage nets the Army uses to conceal anti-aircraft guns from enemy bombers.

Pure genius and ingenuity, that is how this man lives. in the back trunk of his car is an old sailor's trunk filled with his gear, the tools of the trade. Light stands, tripods, reflectors, flash units, diffusers, power cables, halogen bulbs, backdrops, dropcloths, curtains. He has a studio in his car.

Also crammed in his back trunk are a sleeping bag, a week's worth of clothes and underwear, a backpack with a toothbrush and emergency food kit and camping supplies, a toolbox or two (or three), a Triple-A roadside repair/rescue kit and an emergency survival kit with freeze-dried vacuum packed astronaut food, a tinfoil space blanket and 2 pounds of spring water, just in case.

Anyway, here stands, heres squats, here crouches this intrepid explorer of the wilderness, up to his knees in filth. He holds up the ProMaster telephoto lens to his eye, using it like a telescope. through the inverted magnified image, he sees it. His prey. His quarry. His target.About 200 yards away, through some of the most unforgiving terrain known to man.

Muddy swampland, soggy grass, bent over as if after a raging flood. Sharp rocks sticking up oddly waiting to trip him. Poisonous plants. Invisible cobwebs strung between trees. Deer, fox and rabbit droppings. Dry, shriveled leaves and twigs to give away his position to the enemy with every footfall.

He walks very slowly and silently. He is creeping like an indian, much as the Lenape did in this area hundreds of years before Columbus. Silent. Swift. Deadly.

Light upon his feet. One with the forest, in tune with nature. His hand clutches his shiny weapon with all his might.

He is closing in for the kill, sneaking up on his elusive prey.

He emerges from the deer path in the forest into a clearing, where his eyes are soothed by a large still lake. The surface is mirror smooth, for the sun that baked him all day is now going down. He looks up, and the sky is a fiery orange, fading upward through the spectrum into pale azure. the moon is rising. A star or two have come out. Could that be Venus? Bah, he's no astronomer.

The sun is starting to dip below the tree line, its dying rays casting a shadow a hundred feet behind him. His face glows orange like dying embers, his eyes covered by his trusty Aviator sunglasses.

Nightfall is fast approaching. He knows he doesn't have much time left.

He doesn't dare be out after dark. He has maybe 15 minutes, he estimates, before the sun touches the horizon and there is not enough light left to work. He must work quickly. He must either catch his elusive prey, or return home empty handed.

He approaches to within a hundred feet of the strange beast, and stops and sinks to his knees. He will have to crawl the rest of the way, commando style, through the underbrush.

He knows that to walk upright within 100 feet of this monster is to scare it away. It is extremely distrustful of humans.

Especially big, noisy humans, crashing through the brush like elephants, bristling with strange and exotic shiny weapons, and with those scary big black telescoping eyes.

He quietly un-shoulders his backpack and unzips it. He takes out the homemade duck blind and drapes it over himself like a cloak of invisibility.

He has now disappeared. He is a bush. A shrub. A rock. Whatever he wants to be. He has melted into the dusk.

The human bush shuffles forward, now dropped to its belly. It slithers through the underbrush like a snake, its booted feet pushing forward, its nose buried in the dirt like a mole. Its one glassy eyeball protrudes from a gap in the cloth like a periscope.

The cold steel and titanium bluish eyeball is trained on this elusive beast, his prey. He has become an animal himself, a primordial hunter, an alpha male. A predator in the truest sense.

The green mass slithers forward in a commando crawl as if under barbed wire and live machine gun fire. He dares not raise his head. He does not want to give away his position, lest he frighten his enemy and scare it off.

Seventy-five yards.....fifty yards....thirty yards...twenty-five yards...he is almost there.

His pulse quickens with excitement. His hand clutches his weapon with a white-knuckle grip.

Closer, one inch. Closer. Another inch. He feels a sharp pain on his chest, his legs, his kneecaps, his arms. Like pins and needles.

He looks down and curses under his breath.

He is slithering on his belly through poison ivy, rose bushes, brambles. Some kind of thorny vine that tangles in his gear. It rips bigger holes in his father's old army jacket. It snags the camouflage webbing. It rips into his flesh. He feels the warm blood trickle down his legs, stinging from the venomous plants. He tries not to yell. He bites his tongue.

Way to go. What a hero. This had better be worth it.

He hopes he can make it the last couple yards without getting ripped to shreds.

His eyes burn with sweat. His face is bitten by deer flies and mosquitos. He probably has lyme-disease carrying ticks in his hair and on his neck. There could be a copperhead snake slithering up his leg into his shorts, ready to bite his crotch. God only knows.

Ten yards...five yards. He stops. He is now in firing position and ready to make his move.

The creature stands before him, graceful and elegant. A rare prize. the Holy Grail of hunters. He knows this shot could be the shot of a lifetime.

Its long, graceful neck bends down to graze like a giraffe. Probably looking for small bugs in the grass, or those little skeeters on the surface of the water. Or maybe even a fish.

He slowly raises his head just a few inches off the muddy, scraggly, scrubby ground. He smells something rotten and decaying off to his left. He hears some flies buzzing. He tries to ignore it. Maybe it was a luckless victim of this graceful predator.

Reaching backward, he slowly digs into his pocket and pulls out a tiny telescoping tripod, only about six inches tall.

That should be all he needs. He slowly screws his weapon onto the tripod and extends the little legs as far as they can go. The little cleats on the ends of the legs bury themselves into the mud. He winces as he drags himself just an inch or two forward.

There. He made it.

He allows a just barely audible tired sigh to escape his lips. By now it's almost nightfall.

He hears the chirping of crickets and cicadas around him. The creatures of the night. He tries to ignore these as well. He tries to ignore everything and not move a muscle. He even does the best he can to stop breathing. His heartbeat calms down.

His hands are still shaking, partly from exertion, partly from the cold and dampness, and partly from the neurological brain disorder he has suffered from since childhood, that makes this kind of work almost impossible. It is a miracle he can do this at all.

He is ready, everything is in place. He is ready to take the shot.

With his thumb, he flicks the power switch on his sleek, cold metallic weapon. He hears a faint whine as the capacitors charge up.

He waits. And waits. About ten seconds.

Finally, it is ready. He sees the blurred orange of the indicator light blinking out of the corner of his eye. He's ready to fire. The canister has been loaded.

He cocks the manual lock on his weapon and removes the safety. He extends the barrel with his other hand and focuses his targeting scope. He's only getting one shot at this. He looks at his ammo gauge and he has only one shot left until it is empty and useless.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out, he feels his whole body relax. He longer feels the cold, the dampness, the hunger, the fatigue, the pain. He is in The Zone, his mind is completely focused.

The sort of relaxed vigilance that is enjoyed by fighter pilots, airline pilots, race car drivers, captains of sea vessels; Samurai warriors. Ninjas.

Okay, maybe this is getting a little far fetched. Time to stop thinking and get to work.

It's show time.

His hands tighten around the pistol grip of his cold shiny steel weapon. It is black as night.

Up ahead of him, not even twenty feet away, is his prey.

It raises its head, its eyes look toward him and the eyeballs glow in the dark. He freezes. It looks away. He relaxes again.

It's down to the wire now. He has precious seconds.

The creature seems agitated. It may take flight before he can even make the shot.

He holds his breath like a sniper, steadying his hands as his finger tightens on the trigger. His eyes open wide, focusing, focusing. The scope zooms in and the red light comes on, indicating he has a lock on his target.

It's now or never. Do or die. Get it or go home.

He knows he only has one chance. At the last instant, he holds his breath, grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut. He says a little prayer as he pulls the trigger.

There is no loud bang, only a silent click. For his weapon is deadly quiet. There is however a blinding flash that lights up the dark trees and the landscape around him. Like a flash of lightning.

He hears a rustle and a commotion directly in front of him. The prey utters a strange, unearthly squawk and takes flight, making a hell of a lot of noise.

Did it get away? He opens his eyes.  It is pitch black. 

It got away. Another failed attempt. Oh well, at least he tried.

It will live for him to hunt it another day.

He gets up quickly, pulls the cover off and jams it into his backpack. He stumbles off through the undergrowth, his small LED combat flashlight lighting the way.

He missed the shot he wanted. He did not catch his prey.

But he will return, again and again and again, until this prey is his. He has the patience of a brick.

This man is not a hunter, not a soldier, not a warrior, nor is he a recon sniper, or a scout behind enemy lines.

He is a nature photographer.

His "prey" is a Great blue Heron, a graceful crane-like bird native to the marshlands of Delaware and Maryland. And the dangerous wilderness is a state-owned park and wildlife refuge. His "cold black steel weapon" is a Nikon 35mm film camera, dating from the late 1970's. The "ammunition" is Kodak Gold 400 film.

And though the elusive beast has escaped, he has still captured it.

For all time. In yet another Kodak moment.