My camera pack weighs heavily on my back, straps tugging down on each shoulder. My tripod with its three long legs half extended is tucked under my folded left arm. Above me are high tension electric lines that stretch for miles, supported every few hundred yards by towers of tall steel framework. My feet progress casually along a trail that weaves its way through the tall dry grasses. The sun has already set and the light is fading, but ahead I see something that doesn't quite fit the terrain. Is it the hiker that I passed earlier? No, I think it looks more like a dog. I continue to study the shape when I realize that it is a deer, and that it is strolling down the trail directly toward me. I slip my camera bag off my back, unzip the cover, and pull out the camera that has the telephoto lens attached to it. I measure the light and manually set the exposure. As I raise my camera and begin to follow my subject I am delightfully surprised to see that he has a small set of antlers. 

Deer usually bolt about the time I bend over to retrieve my camera. In fact most deer along this power line high tail for the forest at first sight, but to my surprise he just keeps walking toward me. What really makes this unusual is that today is the last day of buck season. There couldn't be another day the entire year that the deer are more spooked and nervous than today. They have already been shot at and hunted for eight days and the season will only end today, 30 minutes after sunset, which is still another 15 minutes away. If twilight is the light we see from the sun after it sets, then I really am in the Twilight Zone, as he keeps closing in on me, Clint Eastwood here to settle a score with me. At twenty paces he stops. This where we lock eyes, measure each other up before drawing our weapons. 

He can't see my right eye, it's looking down the long barrel of a 500 mm lens. As I squeeze my focus button I see something I have never seen before, two white lights glowing back at me, one each from the pupil of his eyes. It must be the focus light of my camera. But how is that possible? I thought this camera used infrared light for focusing. Again I focus, and again I see two white lights glowing back at me from the center of his eyes. I focus, release, and then I shoot. I am surprised the light doesn't spook him, but he has seen quite enough, and he seems determined to continue down this trail. He is brave, but not brave enough to come close enough for a fist fight. He steps off the trail and into the high grass, detouring around me to my left. After he has gotten all the way around me he emerges back onto the trail, continuing down his path, trusting me enough to turn his back on me as he casually puts distance between us. 

I pull into my driveway, climb out of the car, and head straight for the living room. It is dark now and as I stand back from one of the windows I look for my reflection. I point my telephoto lens at the window and squeeze the focus button. There it is, a white spot of light reflecting back at me from the glass. I am puzzled since I was sure this camera used infrared light for focusing. As I continue to study the situation it dawns on me that I am holding my older camera. I had changed my lenses today, putting the telephoto lens on my older camera, and my landscape lens on the newer camera. Wanting to learn more and to understand what I am dealing with, I pull my current landscape setup out of my camera bag and point it at the window. As I press the focus button I see no light reflecting back at me. Just to be sure I move to the bathroom mirror and focus again. No white light, no red light, no light of any kind reflecting back at me, except the light bulb that comes on inside my head as I finally understand what occurred up on that trail. I wonder what that young buck thought about the little glowing flashlight coming off of my camera as I held it up to my face? Did he think it was a defense mechanism, a warning light, like the spray of a skunk telling him to not come any closer?

Above photo: The young forkhorn buck that walked up to me that evening. You will not see my focus light reflecting back to me from his pupils, as I had already focused and taken my finger off the focus button before squeezing the shutter button.