I sat in the woods with a camera for hours and didn’t photograph a thing – only to photograph this in my own backyard

Two whitetail deer in the snow.

Wildlife photography often feels like a grown-up nature scavenger hunt – or a real-life Pokémon Go, if you prefer. But the downside is that sometimes, I walk away from a wildlife photography attempt empty-handed.

A few weeks ago, I spent a few hours in the woods hoping to catch a glimpse of something to photograph. The only wildlife I spotted was a whitetail deer at dusk – both too far away and too dark to photograph. I came away from that attempt empty-handed.