Where Was the Magnificent Seven Print Taken?
The ‘Magnificent Seven’ has stirred many a story and been the cause for many people losing money on bets with their friends. The Magnificent Seven started as a dream and passion of the magnificent mule deer and turned out to be a dream come true to any mule deer lover. Many people have offered to pay big money to hunt in this area or to know of its location.
The Magnificent Seven was created in 1996 and features some of the biggest mule deer that have ever walked the earth. Re-created using photos of the actual harvest or mounted heads, along with ‘live body’ photos and a great background photo taken in southern Utah, the Magnificent Seven came to life. Like a painter with his canvas and imagination, the print was created using computer technology and great pains were taken to assure accuracy and authenticity. All of the bucks you see are real bucks that once roamed the hills, and thanks to the Magnificent Seven, our dreams of seeing the ‘big one’ are closer to reality.
Here is an excerpt from creator Robert King about the inspiration to the Magnificent Seven Print:
The story behind the Magnificent Seven all started around 1995. While I was mustering up big buck heads for the first ever King’s Calendar, I marveled at the awesome feeling it must have been for the hunter to have harvested such a trophy animal.
One evening while over at my good friends house Dennis Wintch, one of the greatest mule deer hunters of our time, our conversation turned to the many mule deer heads hanging on his wall. He asked if they were all standing on a ridge at the same time, which one would I shoot? Boy, what a tough choice!
This is where it all began. I started plotting out the picture of how I wanted it to look. I knew that I would need a perfect backdrop. Seeing that the desert country was my favorite big buck habitat and most of the huge heads that I had been collecting came from the “low country”, I decided that the perfect backdrop would have to come from that type of terrain.
Not long after I told Dennis Wintch of my thoughts about the picture I wanted to create, he told me he would keep his eyes open for a good background picture. Now knowing that there weren’t too many people that spent more time in the field than he, I knew that the odds were in my favor. Many months went by and still no perfect backdrop picture. That is until Dennis called me one night and said ‘I’ve got it!” He went on to tell me that he was coyote hunting over the weekend and was driving down the road when the sun came through a hole in the cloud and shot down on a sandstone cliff. He quickly ran over to a spot where he could take a picture and captured the “shot of a lifetime”. He said the sun shown through he clouds for only a few minutes before it disappeared again behind the early morning clouds.
Finally, I had the backdrop picture I needed. Now the real work began. After weeks of computer work, the piece was finished. The result as the say, is history.
-Robert King
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