Man of the Forest
by Ashley Vincent
Canon EOS 7D, EF 500mm f/4L IS USM, Aperture Priority @ f/4 (1/800 sec), 0 EV, ISO 640, Full Frame
Subject: Orangutan (derived from the Malay words: Orang “man”, Utan “forest”, hence Man of the Forest)
Location: Kinabatangan River, Sukau, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo
Situation: As most of you well know, luck plays varying degrees of importance in so many shots, and the amount of luck I had with this opportunity was all I could hope for. Full of expectations as I was on this trip of seeing all kinds of wonderful things, I had absolutely none of seeing Orangutans in the wild, as I already knew from my previous (and much longer) visit to Sabah that they are far from easy to find.
Fortunately my friend and guide had excellent sight and spotted this devilishly handsome fella from a distance even though all we could see was a small portion of the back of it's head as we made our approach; he was sitting in the bow of a tree relatively close to the river bank happily munching from handfuls of figs.
By the time we came close enough in our little boat, he'd apparently just had his fill and was about to move off. He could just as easily have climbed down and headed off into the undergrowth with his back to us, but Mother Nature was in a charitable mood and somehow influenced him to come down this way. I had just a few seconds to fire off a couple of shots before he disappeared back into the forest and, quite frankly, I'm absolutely delighted with this one :^)
As always, critique and comments encouraged and appreciated, thanks in advance :^)
Comments
10 commentsYou should be delighted, the details look great ! I ve never seen a male in the wild. Youve got yourself a handsome looking bloke ! I wish there was room all around.
Vincent's idea of a tighter crop is tempting, and may be worth making one such image, although I like what you've done here by keeping those limb parts. The legs for instance, they are crooked and and that accentuates the belly and the arms seem to anchor the guy to the tree. I'd like to see it both ways, esp since you have full frame, although I think this would be my favorite.
Anand: If that's not an old jungle adage it should be - LOL ;^) Seriously, it's great advice to follow for any wildlife photographer venturing to parts of the world where they flourish; as I understand it, there are several species of fig tree and each one attracts a different species of birds and animals when they're fruiting. Apparently it's the larger figs in this tree that Orangutans love to feast on. I have photos of at least three different species of Hornbill feeding in others, as well as a couple of species of Barbets enjoying the figs of another.
Vincent & Wayne: Really didn't have time to do much other than make the decision to flip the camera into a vertical position a fire off a few shots, it all happened so fast, as they say :^)
I appreciate your suggestion to crop for a close-up, however, what I did manage to fit in of his limbs, body and generous belly is so beautifully lit by the sun that I feel it would be verging on criminal to eliminate any of those parts from this shot ;^)
BTW Vincent, those are figs this fella is chomping on, not whole apples - LOL ;^)
There's lots to like in this image, including the lighting and those eye-catching orange bits (figs you say?) in its mouth. I share Vincent's feeling on the crop - think it would work better if it were either tighter OR looser...has a bit of a clipped feeling to it for me.
I don't know how you processed this image, but the face of the 'tang has a bit of that grayish low contrast look to it that often comes with reasonably heavy use of a Shadow/Highlight tool (and the shadow patterning in the face - and strength of it - doesn't seem to match the rest of the image). What makes me think this is the highlight in the hair above the 'tangs left eye is quite bright, and the hair to left of this (as one views the image) is quite dark, while that shadow patterning is missing in the facial region (e..g., given the light direction the lower cheek region on the left side of the frame should be quite dark, yet it's as bright as on the right side). Obviously being quite picky, but discordant light patterns stick out strongly for me...and i suspect some others.
Cheers...thanks for sharing yet one more unique image!
Brad
Brad (and Ken): Yep, I did in fact lighten up some areas of the subject's face and brightened up both eyes, as they were far too dark being in the shadows as they were, and remembering remarks people made on previous image I posted a while back of another Orangutan (e.g. "I would work on the overall highlights, and maybe recover just a teeny bit of shadow detail from the face ... " and "I, too, wish for a little more highlight in the face so that as the prime part of the subject it can stand out.", I thought this would be something I could work on in advance.
Having said that, it's a little unfortunate that I didn't recall your advice and heed the warning you offered: “ … if I were you, I'd go real easy on any further efforts to extract shadow detail and balance the exposure - real easy to go over the line here and look "unnatural" … ” ;^.
I also lightened up some of the fur on it's belly to try and even things out, though on this latter stage perhaps I went a little further than necessary.
Thanks again for your valued feedback and suggestions :^)