SNAPSHOT No, Helena photographer Kevin League was not flying next to these sandhill cranes when he took this photo. But he was waiting in exactly the right place, near Lake Helena, at dawn. “Actually, I was on the ground, and they had just taken off and were only about 20 feet in the air,” he says. “But because the horizon was so low, it looks like they are way up in the clouds and that I’m up there, too.” League had been watching the cranes before takeoff and could see they were perfectly lit as they took flight. “I just unloaded on them with dozens of shutters—what we photographers call ‘spray and pray’—and a few turned out great. I particularly like this image for conveying a sense of just how wonderful it must be to fly.” n
6
MAY–JUNE 2018
FWP.MT.GOV/MTOUTDOORS
