Alpha

Alpha

 36x48

Oil and Clay on Canvas

This past fall I found myself standing in an enclosure surrounded by the sound of howling wolves. In moments I would be acting as the photographer, snapping away and watching wolves dart between trees and jumping up on rocks. However, until then I waited as the sound of howls rained around me. It's hard to describe those moments and how that sound reverberated inside my body. I didn't just hear the sound with my ears but I felt it in my chest. The howls died down as the wolf was led by a handler into the enclosure and for a moment the spell of those haunting howls was broken. Yet as I watched the wolf move and saw its eyes, I was under no illusion of who was the alpha in this arena.