Look int my eyes... + Repost in colour

Hi Steve !
I find the eyes Stunning, very nice close up !!!
I may prefer all round more room, around the face, even if it is OOF foreground.
Jagdeep Rajput

I like the detail and I think the eyes look great. It is cropped a bit tight for my tastes, but otherwise this came out well.

Out of curiosity, were had the eyes already turned golden? This cat looks more mature than the 5 week old blue-eyed cub I photographed last year.

Max

Very cool! Great processing, I like your 'selenium' toning. The highlights in the eyes are a bit peculiar and I can see the reflection of the safari vehicle you were in. I might be tempted to experiment with a bit of cloning work in those highlights. Further the framing is a bit too tight for my liking though, alternatively a tighter crop would work for me.

A beautiful, intimate capture, Steve. The eyes here really make the shot though and I do wish that we could see their color.....

Oh what a beautiful image; the eyes are intoxicating and a great choice to go monochrome with this. Very nice indeed, thanks for sharing Steve :^)

Hi Steve,
Super detail in this one and no problems with tight crop for me. Although I'd be curious to see this in color (especially the yes), I trust your decision to convert and you did a nice job in doing so. The highlights in the eye do stand out as unusual and made me want to see exactly what they were.

Thanks again for all the comments and I think having mixed POVs is good as it proves things are always subjective and never straight forward, well perhaps in a few cases

As I mentioned this had been shot a while back, so there was always going to be room for improvement if I shot this recently. The image was shot landscape, so sadly no room for extra depth and although I cannot remember everything from the image, perhaps a portrait format might have been better. Personally I am not a great lover of square crops, but I felt this worked well to focus the viewers eyes within the image. The clip ear personally doesn't worry me as I feel/felt it was the strength of the eyes that made it, but perhaps a tighter crop might be better so that the right ear is clipped too, to balance things?

Max, I can only go by the rangers comment about age, but I think they were dark brown but will check later.

I will add the colour version next week when I get back home, so watch this space.

Many thanks
Steve

OK folks, thanks for being patient, just back, so here is the colour version with a slight crop to balance the ears.

Thanks again.
Steve