Frolicking in the River

This makes me super jealous Couldnt see one when i was in borneo a couple of years ago and you've got two bulls frolicking in water !!
What i love about this is the feeling of being up close and in the water right next to the action. The caramel coloured water instantly gives it a tropical flavour.
There are however some issues with uneven processing in the background. Have a suspicion that i might like it better with minimal work on the background but i might be in the minority.

Ashley,

I cannot say that I have even heard of Pygmy Elephants, must look it up!

Elephants play in water is always wonderful to see, onmy monitor this looks like it has a slight Blue/Magenta cast, but otherwise really fine.

Ashley, this must have been exciting to see and to photograph! I like the shot, but wonder if it isn't too close and needs a little more space around the elephants to give them more room? Anyway, very interesting photo of a little know elephant species (sub). thanks for sharing. Hope you get some good African elephant shots.

Too bad you couldn't find some "full size" elephants. (Just joking with ya) Seriously, very appealing photo with some wonderful action. The larger view has excellent detail. I love the look of their wet skin.

Thanks for taking the time to view and leave comments Anand, Ken, John, Bill, and Gary :^)

Anand: I do appreciate your frustration. When it comes to the Bornean Pygmy Elephants, much as the same with Orangutans in the wild, it's simply a matter of luck; they are around but whether they choose to show themselves or not is anyone's guess. On my first trip there last November, on the very first day as we headed up river on our boat to the place I was going to be staying, we just happened across these two playing in the water and we ended up getting pretty close.

The encounter was so matter-of-fact that I got the impression I'd be having more opportunities with them in days to come. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see any at all when I was there in May either. Frustratingly, when I came back from my river trips at lunchtime I heard others who'd headed in different directions excitedly telling of their encounters, so we headed off to the same spot later that day, but although we could hear them trumpeting and even on occasion see the foliage stirring along the banks as the Elephants worked their way through them, they remained completely out of sight.

Naturally the images I bagged on my first day have become all the more special to me, as I appreciate now how lucky that encounter was. I wish you the same luck on your next visit Anand :^)

Ken: Spot on my friend! I also thought the skin colours of the Elephants was a little strange but I put it down to the fact that it was darker due to them being all wet. I just shifted the magenta sliders down and no difference showed with that, but when I did the same with the blue slider (notably the saturation) it made an incredible difference in all my Elephant shots; those both in the water and out! Any idea what caused the blue cast in the fist place?

I'll attach the reworked version below.

John: Although there is more room in this frame for me to pan the shot out, I didn't feel there was enough to make the picture any more interesting or appealing than this crop that I much prefer, but of course choice of crop is very subjective.

Bill: Yep, as easy to interpret a shot like this in different ways, I came away from the encounter feeling sure they were merely having some fun rather than anything else ;^)

Oops! Forgot to attach the new image ;^)

I have enjoyed looking at this Ashley. These elephants are just so different than their African cousins. Without something to measure them against it is hard to tell at first glance that these are pygmy elephants though; if you would have said Asian I would have believed you too! The exposure is spot on and I like the dark BG it really helps to focus the attention on the elephants. The only thing really that IMO would have improved this vastly would have been a more parallel position of the elephants to the camera.The repost with color correction does look more realistic.

Really nice techs on this Ashley and love the interaction...my only nit, is the angle of the shot (may not have had any other choice and understand that). I find myself wishing to not be looking mostly of the back of the other elephant...however, overall still a great shot!

Thanks for your comments Vincent and Kurt :^)

Vincent: Although I believe it is still a subject of debate, from my research these are indeed a sub-species of Asian Elephant, and of course "Bornean Pygmy Elephant" has a much more exotic ring to it than plain old "Asian", hence the reason why I choose to credit them with the longer title ;^)

Kurt: For all the shots I took of this pair (and there were indeed many!) I couldn't squeeze off a single frame in which I could get a good enough angle to to show the eye of both subjects, which was of course very frustrating. The best opportunities I had, one or the other would flap it's ear forward, totally obscuring it's eye from my view. As you might imagine, the angle of view I had was pretty much all dependent on the ability of boat's captain to maneuver us into a favourable position, which wasn't easy while these two moving around as much as they did.

Still, better these shots than nothing at all ;^)