Vantage Point

A wonderful image with great composition and lot of depth !
Vertical trees add lot of magic here .
Jagdeep Rajput

You are right Marsel, obvious would be to go vertical here, but this image proves that horizontal works very well also. Great thinking! Ideally IMO it would be best to have separation between the two most left trunks, which would have continued the nice pattern of tree trunk-green bush and enhanced the horizontal format that way even further. But that is really a minor thing.

Great choice, really nice image design. The closest trunk is just a minor distraction and i do like a crop of just inside it, despite putting the bear closer to center. Still a powerful image, as usual.

Very nice capture. I like the very soft lighting with the rimlight effect, the kind of worried looking head turn pose and the catchlight in the eye. I also like the highlights that show off the claws so well and the vertical layering effect of the trees and greenery. A fine shot of my favorite animal.

Fantastic capture. I like how the tree the bear cub climbed is in focus, while the other trees are not.

Laura Stafford

Great shot! The composition works very well.
Congrats

D&L

Obvious is not in your photography vocabulary Marsel and for good reason. The OOF trees on the left and right sides create a nice frame and work to concentrate the eye and attention on the perfectly in focus bear.

- Luke

Excellent shot Marsel, and I really like that you went with a horizontal crop here instead of vertical.

I think horizontal was a great choice. Given the placement of the surrounding blurred textures and trunks this image almost looks like it was shot through a tilt-shift lens.

Max

Admit it, that was a guy in a suit chasing that bear up there!

I like the horizontal framing here, very original (why the hell didn't I think of that ) Also really like the framing of the trees. Looking forward tos eeing your japan stuff.

Hi Marsel,

Interesting shot. I have to admit that I've looked at this image a few times trying to decide how I felt about it (sorry for inflating the number of views! ). Here's my bottom line - I think I'd prefer it vertical. There's the obvious argument that you're already well aware of (those strong vertical lines of the tree trunk and the vertical orientation of the bear) and that you intentionally ignored. But to me the bigger factor is the lack of separation between the left-most two trees - I find this disproportionately large single visual element distracting and "off pattern" (and I think the only off-pattern element should be the bear). I suppose an alternate would be to crop out the left-most (and most out-of-focus) tree, but then your crop would end up close to square and may not appeal to some viewers. So...I'm left thinking that going with the obvious strong natural vertical axis presented is the better solution. But each to their own...

Cheers...thanks for sharing this "outside the box" composition...

Brad

Thanks for your comments - much appreciated.

Brad - thanks for the feedback. I too would have liked the trees in the fg to be separated, but as it is, I prefer it over the more obvious solution (especially because I already have quite a few cubs-in-trees-in-vertical-orientation-shots). Funny enough, National Geographic was fine with the trees on the left, but they cropped off the tree on the right! To each their own indeed...

My instant reaction was virtually the same as Vincent's. The subtle elements of the profile expression, the touch of rim lighting and rich color are what make this special, IMO.

Like the shallow DOF, very nice indeed. Too bad the two trees to the far left were not seperated more, but still a powerful image.

Great com and detail Really like the trees surrounding the subject.

Nice capture