Grazing Vicuña

Gallery: WildlifePosted November 9, 200950 views6 comments

I found this portion of a wild vicuña herd grazing on the high plateau of Peru. Vicuña are distant relatives of the domesticated Alpaca, but their fur is softer if you can believe it.
I feel like there is something "off" about this image, but I can't figure out what it is. Is the bush in the left hand corner a good anchor for the image or is it distracting? Are the colors too warm? I have a number of others in the same series to choose from.
Any and all critiques are welcome - thank you for your help!

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Paul Marcellini on November 9, 2009 at 4:23 PM

I kinda feel the bush is a distraction but think a pano crop above it strengthens the image. I like the different browns a lot.

Registered on November 27, 2007, 250 Posts, 2468 Comments

Comment posted by Neil Rossmiller on November 9, 2009 at 10:03 PM

Hello Lindsay,
I agree with Paul on the Crop, but disagree with the warmth. IMO it would benefit by cooling it down a bit and perhaps reducing the saturation slightly.
Neil

Registered on October 30, 2009, 156 Posts, 749 Comments

Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on November 10, 2009 at 6:14 AM

Interesting creatures Lidsay. I like it that you have captured them all with their heads down grazing in the same direction. I do wish they were angled slightly towards the viewer rather than away though. I do not feel the bush in the BLC is a great anchor point and feel cropping some from the bottom would enhance the composition dramatically as it will shift the subjects off the centre line and the upper section of the image is more interesting than the bottom.

Registered on February 24, 2006, 504 Posts, 7203 Comments

Comment posted by Marsel van Oosten on November 10, 2009 at 8:53 AM

What Vincent said.

Thanks for sharing, we don't get to see many of these over here!

Registered on March 9, 2004, 285 Posts, 2277 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on November 10, 2009 at 11:54 AM

Hi Lindsay,

The single biggest change that would improve this image for me would be to crop about 20% off the bottom and "ground" those vicuñas a little more. I agree with Marsel that it would be nice if the subjects were oriented slightly more toward you, but this was clearly completely out of your control...

Cheers...thanks for sharing this...

Brad

PS: I always enjoy images of the fauna of South America - I hope you have more to post!

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on November 10, 2009 at 4:12 PM

I agree with the cropping off of the bottom, but for my taste I would like to see more saturation in the colors, I find the image almost a monotone. This of course is just my personal likes. Neat shot of creatures seldom seen.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments