Back from Borneo

HI Ashley, good image, but I do wish the mother was facing the camera just a bit. Good exposure and detail. Thanks for sharing.

Love the eyes of the baby: she/he is really checking you out!

What a truly delightful shot, I only wish we had a greater variety of Monkeys here in Africa.

The babies expression is priceless, if I was to be really picky a little bit more head turn from Mum, would have taken this way over the top,

Very nice, Ashley. The babies stare clearly makes the shot but I like inclusion of the habitat and the peek-a-boo feel of babe with Mom. I agree a bit of a head turn from Mom would have been great but you should be very happy with this image.

Hi Ashley, welcome back.

You certainly know how to nail these subjects, great eye contact from the little one which captures the readers eyes, I just wonder if you had both faces looking to camera it might weaken the overall feel?. I also like the slight incline of the branch they are sitting on, it just adds a bit more into the image. Although viewing on MacBook pro so I can't really comment too much on colour, but I do wonder if a little could be lost at the top of the image?

Look forward to seeing the fruits of your trip.

TFS
Steve

I absolutely love this image. Great colours, great environment and the interaction is very intimate. Exceptional work Ashley.

A delightful shot! I agree that the intense look by the infant really makes the photo, but I also like the intimacy of the scene and the sharpness of the image.

The contrasting colors of the monkeys and the vegetation is most impressive here Ashley. Of course the little one peeking over mom's arm makes the shot. Good capture!

Many thanks for your kind words and comments John, Esme', Ken, Keith, Steve, Darren, David, and Julia, much appreciated :^)

As it happens, I only had two opportunities to photograph this troop of Maroon Langurs, a few hours on the first day and another few on my last. Aside from these Maroon Langurs, I was lucky enough to bring back with me this time shots of Proboscis Monkeys, Long-Tailed Macaques, Pig-Tailed Macaques, an Orangutan (real lucky with that one, as not easy to find them in the wild!), and another real surprise bonus, SIlvered Langurs on my last morning.

Of all these primates, by far and away the least cooperative were the Maroon Langurs; wonderful as they are to observe, the experience of photographing them amounts largely to frustration bordering on infuriation. They're apparently not afraid of humans, as surely they wouldn't chose to munch on leaves so close the road we walked along, when they could just as easily feed off the trees set deeper back in the forest, but it's almost like they derive a certain amount of sadistic pleasure from toying with those two-legged aliens that have long, glass-fronted noses that for some strange reason are constantly removed and replaced back on their faces ... if that's not 100% clear, I'm referring to humans with large lenses ;^p

I must have taken somewhere in the region of 500 photos, the vast majority immediately trashed, as more often than not once the subject realised I was aiming my "nose" at them, they'd quickly maneuver into a position that resulted in a seriously blurred image or a pretty decent rendition of the back of their head.

Other challenges that thwarted so many attempts were things like having to switch from brightly light sky in the background (when the best opportunities were with those higher up in the trees) suddenly to action that presented itself lower down in and among darker patches of foliage, having me flicking my control knob for exposure compensation so fast and frequently that I came close to creating blisters on me fingers!

And of course these guys love to jump around from branch to branch; I cringe to think of how many shots I've still got on file that would have been great if not for one part of a limb, tail, or head being amputated in part or in full by one edge of the frame or another, or those where I finally managed to get everything acceptably within the frame but some bugger of a leaf or branch ended up totally obscuring the subject's face ;^.

In summary: Yep, I too would dearly have loved to have at least one of mum's eyes bright and clear in this shot, but short of me throwing my shoe at her there really wasn't anything I could to to entice her to look my way at the same time as the nipper ... in any case, I was wearing army boots which would have taken too long to remove ;^p

More shots to follow every 48 hours and thanks again for taking an interest and wishing you a wonderful weekend ahead :^)

Good job with the exposure, Ashley, especially in disguising the always-troublesome draping tail with the big leaves in the lower left! The baby peering outwards adds a strong cuteness factor. My only wish would have been for a little better look at the mother's face.

Thanks for taking the time to view and offer your thoughts Lon :^)