When I have the chance and the time, I like to experiment with these kind of slow shutter speed, motion blurred effects. I recorded this one last Saturday afternoon up in Georgetown, Colorado. The bighorn rut was in full swing, which is the best time of year to see the male rams. The rest of the year they remain in bachelor herds high on the mountain, while the ewes and babies graze at lower elevations.  It also helps that during the rut the males are so focused on the business at hand — mating, or in most cases, trying to mate — that they’re much more tolerant of a close approach. I had already gotten plenty of action freezing shots of the mating ritual that morning (usually a male chasing a female around in circles until she finally tires and succumbs, or until he finally tires and moves on to the next possible taker — but more on that in a future post). The point is, I was satisfied with what I had, so I decided to try and blur a few by slowing the shutter speed to a 1/15th of a second, placing the active focus sensor on the ram’s eye, and then steadily panning the camera with the action while releasing the shutter.