Vladimir Medvedev's Image

At 1,800 metres in the mountains of Canada’s Banff National Park, bighorn sheep are forced to scrape down into the snow with their hooves to reach the grass below.

Vladimir watched the hardy herd from the shelter of a clump of trees. At first, he took a series of portraits. But then he realised that the context was missing. By using a wide-angle lens he could show the whole herd in its environment. Vladimir worked out which way the herd was heading and then ‘walked up the slope and sat right in their path. They saw me, but they weren’t bothered,’ he says. ‘They simply walked around me and continued on their way uphill.’