Ejaz Khan Photography

The Story Behind the Arctic Poise

I was in Norway, and a storm was moving in.

Everyone was heading out of the area.

Except my tracker, Sig, and me.

We were heading directly into it.

I had one photograph in my mind: I wanted to see the faces of the musk oxen covered in snow and ice. I wanted the storm itself to become part of the portrait.

As we trekked deeper into it, visibility disappeared.

This was the first time I had ever photographed from inside a storm rather than before or after one.

That’s when everything changed.

There was something strangely beautiful about not knowing what was ahead.

Nothing was guaranteed.

Not the photograph.

Not finding the musk oxen.

Not even an easy return.

Sig and I had tied ourselves together with a thin rope so we couldn’t become separated. He was only about six feet in front of me, yet at times I couldn’t see him.

All I could see was the first foot or so of rope disappearing into the white.

When I slowed down, I could feel it tighten.

That was how I knew where he was.

My entire body was protected beneath layers of clothing, but every piece of snow that struck the exposed skin of my face felt like tiny pins.

Eventually, through the whiteout, Sig pointed toward a herd of musk oxen.

Here you go.

I pulled out my camera and started photographing.

Visibility was so poor that I didn’t realize how close I had moved to this enormous musk ox lying in the snow.

Suddenly, I saw him.

The surprise made me yell.

He opened his eye.

For a moment, we simply looked at one another.

I was struggling against conditions that felt almost unbearable to me.

He was lying there quietly, completely composed inside them.

That’s when I understood the photograph.

The storm hadn’t interrupted his world.

It was his world.

I called the photograph Arctic Poise because in conditions that had stripped away my sense of certainty, he remained completely at ease.

That’s the difference between enduring an environment and belonging to it.
View the large image: ejazkhanphotography.com/art/arctic-poise-musk-ox-f…

3 days ago | [YT] | 31

Ejaz Khan Photography

The Story Behind "Onward"

I was in Svalbard.

It was early morning after a long snowmobile ride when we arrived at an abandoned building complex in the middle of nowhere.

There must have been fifty buildings.

Empty.

Snow stretched for miles around them, and the entire place had a strange, almost haunting energy.

We parked the snowmobiles and began searching for wildlife. An Arctic fox was high on my list.

And then one appeared.

I lowered myself into the snow until I was almost completely flat. I wanted to get to his eye level. More than anything, I wanted him to look at me.

He wouldn't.

I waited.

Still nothing.

That’s when I realized I had completely misunderstood what was happening.

The fox wasn't ignoring me.

He was listening.

Somewhere beneath all that snow were rodents, and while I was waiting for him to acknowledge my presence, he was completely focused on something far more important to him.

I had my purpose.

He had his.

Neither of us needed the other to change direction.

That’s the difference between expecting the world to respond to us and accepting that everything around us is following its own path.

I called this photograph Onward because that morning we both continued in the direction that mattered to us. Watch the full arctic fox collection : ejazkhanphotography.com/collection/fox-pictures/

1 week ago | [YT] | 3

Ejaz Khan Photography

The Story Behind "Provocation"


I was in France to photograph bulls.

Early one morning, the rancher brought them out into the field.

I had never photographed bulls before, so I wasn't interested in immediately forcing a photograph. I wanted to watch them first—to understand how they moved, how they reacted, and where they felt comfortable.

And then the rancher released them.

They took off.

They ran across the field, literally jumping over a large separation between two fields. I watched them continue running until they reached the far side.

Suddenly, they stopped.

They simply stood there.

After all that energy and movement, they had reached a place where they seemed completely comfortable.

Their safe haven.

That’s when I realized that every one of us has one.

For these bulls, it appeared to be that particular field.

For me, my safe haven is different.

It comes after I have spent enough time with my subject to understand it. Once I begin to recognize its behavior, I stop chasing photographs and start anticipating them.

That’s the difference between simply photographing what happens and being prepared for what happens next.

That morning, before I could photograph the bulls the way I wanted, I first had to learn where they felt safe.

And perhaps that is exactly where Provocation began.
View the bull fine art collection: ejazkhanphotography.com/collection/pictures-of-bul…

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

Ejaz Khan Photography

The Story Behind "The Distraction"

It was early morning in Haines, Alaska.

Thousands of salmon had returned to the river, bringing thousands of bald eagles to feed.

I watched one eagle pull a salmon from the water and begin eating.

Suddenly, another eagle arrived and challenged him for the prize.

Neither one was willing to surrender.

They fought.

And they kept fighting.

But that wasn’t the biggest surprise.

While these two eagles were completely consumed with defeating each other, a third eagle appeared.

It saw the salmon.

It saw the fight.

And it simply took the prize.

What fascinated me was what happened next.

The original two eagles clearly saw what had happened.

But instead of stopping and going after the salmon, they continued fighting each other.

The reason for their conflict was gone.

Yet the conflict remained.

I couldn't stop thinking about how often we do the same thing.

We begin an argument because something matters to us.

And then somewhere along the way, proving that we are right becomes more important than the very thing we were fighting for.

By the time we realize it, someone else may have quietly walked away with the prize.

That’s the difference between fighting for something and simply fighting to win. View the Bald eagle collection: ejazkhanphotography.com/art/baby-bald-eagle-pictur…

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

Ejaz Khan Photography

When creating a photograph, what do you focus on most?

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

Ejaz Khan Photography

The Story Behind "Window to Our Soul."

I was in Chile, and I had been following this mountain lion for three days.

During those three days, I knew he had not eaten. That knowledge changed the way I watched him. Hunger meant I couldn't take his behavior lightly.

On the third day, we finally came face to face in an open field.

He saw my tracker and me, walked over to a rock, and sat down.

Every so often, he would turn and look in our direction.

I watched every movement through my 600mm lens. Read the full story
Something didn't feel right.

He appeared to be pretending we weren't there. His head would go down, almost as if he had lost interest in us.

And then he would take a few steps closer.

Head down.

A few more steps.

Closer again.

I alerted my tracker.

I felt he was trying to understand us—our strength, our movement, whether we represented danger, and what we might do if he came closer.

Yet there was one thing I desperately wanted from him that he refused to give me.

His eyes.

He never looked directly into my eyes.

And without that connection, I couldn't read what was happening inside him.

That's when the meaning of this photograph became clear to me.

We often say the eyes are the window to the soul.

Yet in this moment, the absence of eye contact revealed just as much.

I could see his body.

I could study every movement.

I could watch the distance between us slowly disappear.

Except I could never truly know his intention.

That uncertainty is what stayed with me.

That is why I called this photograph Window to Our Soul.

Sometimes it isn't what another being allows us to see that creates the mystery.

It's what they refuse to reveal.
View my fine art images at: ejazkhanphotography.com/

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 31

Ejaz Khan Photography

The Story Behind "Fatigue"

I was in France photographing horses, and the day before I created this image, something strange kept happening.

I had not seen much Indian influence in this part of France, yet while walking through a gift shop, I saw a statue of an Indian goddess with multiple arms.

Later, while looking at my phone, an image of what appeared to be the same goddess showed up again.

That evening, I went to dinner at a very French local restaurant.

There she was again.

Three times in one day.

I didn't think much of it.

Until the next morning.

I had been photographing the horses for hours. I changed my position. I changed my camera settings. I kept searching for something that felt worthy of becoming a fine art photograph.

Nothing worked.

I was exhausted.

Then the rancher announced that the horses were exhausted too.

There would be one final run.

The horses started moving, and from where I was standing, I knew I wasn't going to get the photograph.

Then something took over.

I grabbed my camera and started running.

The horses were tired and struggling through the mud while I was running on dry ground, which gave me just enough speed to get ahead of them.

And then I noticed something.

With every stride, their legs sank deep into the mud. They had to pull harder to free themselves, causing their bodies to move from side to side almost like a pendulum.

I reached the front of them, jumped into the water and raised my camera.

That's when I saw it.

Bodies overlapping.

Heads appearing behind one another.

Forms emerging from forms.

Suddenly, the image reminded me of what I had seen three times the day before.

The goddess.

Was that image simply buried somewhere in my subconscious?

Was seeing her three times nothing more than coincidence?

Or had those encounters somehow prepared my mind to recognize this composition when it finally appeared in front of me?

I don't know.

And maybe I don't need to know.

What I do know is that on the final run, when the horses were exhausted and I was exhausted, everything came together.

That is why I called this photograph Fatigue.

Sometimes inspiration arrives long before we understand why we are being shown
it.
View my Fine Art Horse Collection: ejazkhanphotography.com/collection/fine-art-horse-…

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 28

Ejaz Khan Photography

The Story Behind "Cold Order"

For ten days, I searched for Arctic wolves and never had the opportunity to come face to face with them.

The isolation and the cold had begun to wear me down. Yet something else was happening during those ten days. With so much silence and so much time alone, I began searching myself as much as I was searching for the wolves.

Eventually, I accepted defeat.

I packed my equipment and asked my tracker, Robert, to take us back to civilization.

We were traveling back on snowmobiles when Robert suddenly stopped.

He smiled.

I knew immediately he had seen something.

I jumped off the snowmobile and began putting my camera together.

And then they appeared.

One after another.

As the pack crossed in front of me, I noticed something extraordinary.

One wolf continually positioned himself between me and the others.

He would cross with one group, then return for another. Again and again, he moved back and forthn three times making certain that whenever members of the pack passed me, he was the wolf closest to me.

The others walked almost without concern.

He didn't.

His eyes remained on me.

These wolves rarely encounter humans, and he had no way of knowing what danger I might represent. Yet the responsibility seemed clear: if something happened, he would be the first one to face it.

He was their shield.

That’s when everything changed for me.

I had spent ten days hoping a wolf would give me a moment of connection.

Instead, this wolf gave me something far more powerful.

He showed me responsibility.

He didn't need to appear friendly. He didn't need to trust me. His first responsibility was to his pack.

That is why I called this photograph Cold Order.

In one of the coldest and most unforgiving places I had ever experienced, I witnessed something remarkably simple:

Leadership isn't about walking in front. Sometimes it's about placing yourself between those you protect and whatever might be coming. View the arctic wolf collection: ejazkhanphotography.com/collection/arctic-wolf-fin…

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 33

Ejaz Khan Photography

The Story Behind the "Intimate"
It was a sunny afternoon at Percé Rock in Canada.

Thousands of Northern Gannets surrounded me, but the energy of the colony had completely changed from the morning.

The hard work was over.

The birds were resting, grooming themselves, and grooming one another.

Northern Gannets form long-term pair bonds, and watching them together, I couldn't help seeing something very familiar in their behavior.

This particular pair made me laugh.

I kept watching the male groom himself. Every time he finished working through his feathers, he would pull his beak into his neck and puff himself up with what looked to me like enormous satisfaction.

Almost as if to say, Look what I just accomplished.

But there was another issue.

There were places beneath his eye and along his upper neck that he simply couldn't reach.

That's when his partner quietly stepped in.

She began cleaning the areas he couldn't reach himself.

And then he did it again.

He pulled his head back, puffed himself up and looked incredibly proud—as though he had done all the work.

I started laughing behind my camera.

She did the work.

He took the credit.

Yet the longer I watched them, the more I realized there was something deeper happening.

He could take care of himself only so far.

She could reach the places he couldn't.

And he allowed her close enough to do it.

That is intimacy.

Not simply being beside someone, but trusting them with the places you cannot reach yourself.

For all the thousands of birds surrounding me that afternoon, my world became very small.

Just these two.

That is why I called this photograph Intimate.
View art work on my website: ejazkhanphotography.com/

1 month ago | [YT] | 42

Ejaz Khan Photography

The Story Behing "Gift"

It was late afternoon at Percé Rock in Canada.

I had arrived with a very specific photograph already created in my mind.

For years in New York, I photographed beauty campaigns for makeup clients. I wanted to approach these Northern Gannets in exactly the same way, not simply as birds, but as fashion models.

There was one feature I couldn't stop looking at.

That extraordinary turquoise blue surrounding the eye.

To me, it looked like makeup.

I imagined this photograph as a beauty campaign for blue mascara. Everything in the composition would lead your attention toward that single detail.
In my mind, the bird's eye was open.

But the afternoon sun was harsh. The light wasn't wrapping around the bird the way I wanted, and in the heat, many of the Gannets were resting with their eyes closed.

Then a cloud moved between the sun and the bird.

Suddenly the light became soft.

The harsh shadows disappeared, and the beautiful roundness I had been waiting for appeared.

I found this Gannet and focused on her.

But she wouldn't open her eye.

I waited.

The cloud continued moving.

I knew I had only seconds before the direct sunlight returned and the light I wanted disappeared.

For a moment, I was waiting for nature to give me the photograph I had already designed in my head.

Then I stopped waiting.

I composed the image and pressed the shutter.

Later, when I looked at the photograph, I realized something.

Had she opened her eye, the turquoise marking I wanted to celebrate might actually have become less prominent.

By closing her eye, she had revealed it beautifully.

I had gone there with a photograph already created in my imagination.

Nature gave me something better.

That is why I called this photograph Gift.

Because sometimes creating isn't about forcing the world to match what you imagined.

Sometimes the greatest creativity comes from recognizing the gift you've already been given.

View my new release images on my website: ejazkhanphotography.com/collection/new-release/

1 month ago | [YT] | 18