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Good Morning
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Good Morning

by Peter Cross

Gallery: WildlifePosted October 4, 201187 views5 comments
I was out at sunrise at my nearby nature reserve yesterday and came upon a group of 3 does bedded down. They seemed happy to let me take all the photos I wished. Despite this being the silly season (i.e. the rut) for cervids in N.A., I like this image as it seemed to carry much more emotion and a certsin connectedness between two very different animals sharing a moment. I'll post a buck photo from the morning on another day. Minimal processing done. This is about 50% of original size as I cropped out unnecessary vegetation on the top and left side. Does this comp work ok? I also cloned out a few distracting shoots of vegetation. Lightened just a bit. Sharpend for the web.

Canon 60D
EF 70-200mm f/4L @ 200mm
1/160th @ f4
ISO 800
tripod

Comments and critiques encouraged and appreciated.

Comments

5 comments
Comment posted by Richard Teller on October 5, 2011 at 10:53 PM
The composition is good and the focus on the eyes is where it should be. There is something about the texture of the hide of the animal that doesn't appear right. I don't know the cause and and don't have a remedy.
Registered on August 23, 2010, 1162 Posts, 6692 Comments
Comment posted by Peter Cross on October 6, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Richard, you may be seeing artifacts left over from my attempt to clone out several stems of vegetation. Because of the texture of the hair, it was difficult to get something to be a perfect match in regards the grain of the hairs so to speak. I'm still learning how to do this. Good eyes.
Registered on April 3, 2010, 271 Posts, 1342 Comments
Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on October 6, 2011 at 12:14 AM
The comp works very well for me Peter and I really like that look back pose and those huge shiny dark eyes. The low shooting angle is also a good point. The only thing that I find a bit distracting is the bright lit grasses in the BG. I would suggest to tone down their brightness and saturation a tad. Particularly the larger version seem to have a poor IQ. The doe looks rather soft and there seems to be some kind of pixelation going on. Perhaps something went wrong with creating a jpeg for the web?
Registered on February 24, 2006, 504 Posts, 7203 Comments
Comment posted by Peter Cross on October 6, 2011 at 12:25 AM
There might be an issue with the conversion to JPEG. I'm following the instructions provided by Darwin Wiggett but there are some differences in my version of PSE9 which I thought I had worked around. I agree about the light behind. I have a nice image of her head in that light when she turned her head around to look straight ahead and it is nice, but I thought this image was more compelling. Thanks for the comments.
Registered on April 3, 2010, 271 Posts, 1342 Comments
Comment posted by Steve Balke on October 12, 2011 at 5:04 PM
I love the pose of the deer here and the comp of the image. The shot has a nice intimacy too: the deer seems to be looking right at us. I'm fine with the brightness behind the head. However, I did notice that the texture of the body seemed different. I only considered that it might be a result of post processing though when I magnified it and discovered some irregular dark bordered blotches. Some textures are so difficult to seamlessly repair. Generally, for that reason and because of concern for showing as accurate a texture as possible, I try to avoid creating animal (or bird) pixels and tolerate the odd misplaced vegetation. For example, in this case, I'm now more uncertain as to what the true texture of the animal's skin really is. If the repaired texture was in the bg it would not be of as much importance.
Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments