{"id":26463,"date":"2016-12-19T08:58:07","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T14:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/?p=26463"},"modified":"2016-12-19T08:58:07","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T14:58:07","slug":"minneapolis-star-tribune-bemidji-state-alumnus-wins-national-recognition-for-fox-photo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/2016\/12\/19\/minneapolis-star-tribune-bemidji-state-alumnus-wins-national-recognition-for-fox-photo\/","title":{"rendered":"Minneapolis Star Tribune: Bemidji State alumnus wins national recognition for fox photo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Olson didn’t expect the fox to stick around.<\/span><\/p>\n

A conservation photographer by trade, Olson, 29, had spent an August day on the Gunflint Trail fruitlessly scouting for moose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Driving away, he spotted a young female fox hunting. He waited for the animal to bolt off, and when she didn’t, he started snapping photos — first from his car, then from a roadside ditch.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The only conclusion I could come to was that she had never seen a human before,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the photos from that day — the fox in profile, yawning — went on to win an award from Nature’s Best Photography magazine.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now in its 21st year, the magazine’s Windland Smith Rice International Awards competition draws submissions from around the world — typically between 20,000 and 25,000 annually, said Deborah Freligh, art director and co-publisher at Nature’s Best.<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s one grand prize winner each year, plus winners in categories such as oceans, birds and landscapes. Eighty-two images — including Olson’s, which won in the wildlife category — were chosen this year for an exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We’re looking for great shots that have great light and clarity and good composition and all those kinds of things, but then something memorable — something that sets it a little bit apart from the rest that we see,” Freligh said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The clarity and lighting in Olson’s photo are a combination that a photographer may capture “once in a lifetime,” Freligh said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nature’s Best previously recognized Olson for his photo of a snowy owl, taken during the infamously harsh winter of 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

The recognition is a boon for Olson’s photography career, said his mentor, wildlife photographer Melissa Groo.<\/span><\/p>\n

“A lot of people enter, and only a few — very few — make it to the very end. And he has twice now,” she said. “So I would say that’s a pretty remarkable achievement.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Olson, who lives in Burnsville, was always interested in the outdoors. But it wasn’t until he was a teenager — after his grandfather gave him a camera — that he developed a passion for photography.<\/span><\/p>\n

“As an avid outdoorsman, I started trading in my fishing poles and my hunting equipment and started doing photography,” Olson said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Olson received a biology degree from Bemidji State University and an associate’s degree in photography from Dakota County Technical College.<\/span><\/p>\n

He’s been a professional photographer for about six years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though he travels for his work, Olson has a particular passion for photographing the wild places of Minnesota, Groo said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“He seems to have a real special connection to the wildlife of Minnesota,” she said, “and a real art and skill in going out and finding it.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Olson didn’t expect the fox to stick around. A conservation photographer by trade, Olson, 29, had spent an August day on the Gunflint Trail fruitlessly scouting for moose. Driving away, he spotted a young female fox hunting. He waited for the animal to bolt off, and when she didn’t, he started snapping photos — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-link"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26464,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26463\/revisions\/26464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}