The Cherry on My Cake

Canon EOS 7D, EF 500mm f/4L IS USM, Aperture Priority @ f/4 (1/2500 sec), -1/3 EV, ISO 640, Cropped About 50% from Full Frame

Subject: Silvered Langur AKA Silvered Leaf Monkey AKA Silvery Lutung

Location: Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo

Situation: On the last day of my trip we ended up at the airport about an hour earlier than necessary, and although I'd been up again at the crack of dawn to try and capture as many last-minute images I could before showering and heading off for my return flight, I asked my friend if there was anything else I could possibly shoot nearby in the hour we still had left.

To my surprise and delight he drove me to a small wooded area situated in the middle of a residential neighbourhood not far away, that he happened to remember was home to a small troop of Silvered Langurs; a species I had dearly wanted to photograph in the wild but neither on my last trip nor this one had we come across any … until now. You could say this was the cherry on my cake :^)

Soon as we got to the spot we saw them, but in my heightened state of excitement and the pressure of knowing we didn't have long before we'd need to head back to the airport again, I forgot to check my settings and completely cocked-up the first few shots I took, which would have otherwise been the best of the short series I ended up capturing; they were of a mother with her young both looking directly at me ;^.

The rest of the time I spent moving from one position to another trying to get an angle on any of them that hadn't by this time already moved further into cover (I don't believe I was causing them stress, but I think living so close to humans they've become a little more wary of people than primates you find deeper in the jungle generally are), which was made all the more difficult due to the bright sky usually directly behind them.

Anyhow, I scored a few that I was relatively pleased with and this is one of those. BTW, as their name suggests, Silvered Langurs do indeed usually have silverly-coloured fur all over, with two exceptions: the babies who have orange fur at birth (changing to silver as they grow older) and what is described as “morphs” who, for reasons I've yet to discover, keep their orange coat for life. The one you see here is therefore a morph or variant.

Aside from usual adjustments, I cloned out a number of small patches of bright light areas that were seeping through some of the palm fronds, as they were far too distracting to my eye.

Thoughts, comments, and suggestions always welcome :^)