The Awakening
by Ashley Vincent
Canon EOS 7D, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM MK II, Aperture Priority @ f/5.6 (1/160 sec), -2/3 EV, ISO 640, Handheld, JPEG from RAW, About 70% of Full Frame
This magnificent animal is one of a number of Lions in the breeding programme at the Big Cat Reserve, Limpopo, South Africa.
The enclosure he and his family are kept in is large enough for them to remain completely hidden from view if they wish to be, and on previous visits they where indeed nowhere to be seen, though finally I got lucky.
We showed up outside the enclosure about an hour before sunset and this handsome male appeared to have just woken up. Trouble was, due to the cloud cover and the lower position we were situated in, the light appear somewhat flat, so while I was happy to finally have an opportunity with this big cat I accepted the fact that ambient lighting wasn't going to enhance any of the images I was taking.
Then once again Mother Nature lent me Her supporting hand: A band of rich, golden light began filtering through gaps in the distant clouds, and this was the moment the King chose to stretch, rise, and go in search of something more interesting to look at than a photographer aiming a camera at him while repeatedly whispering, “Thank you Mother Nature, thank you so much!” ;^)
Critique and comments always welcome.
Comments
11 commentsKen Archer
I like the colours - do you have any with other poses?
I am sure I commented on this a few days ago, but clearly not, but at least I can now see Vincent's comments, with which to be perfectly honest I do not agree The pose is for me at least typically Lion and in no way silly, I have far sillier shots. I would however try to tone down the brighter baranches in the BG.
In answer to several of your observations:
Although I'm really not sure what that OOF splotch was connecting with his head, I agree it is extremely unfortunate, and no matter what I tried in post-processing I couldn't seem to lessen the effect without making matters worse.
The tree did indeed better reflect the warm light of the setting sun than the Lion did, though I seriously doubt I could have positioned myself in any way to have this in reverse at the time. I guess I was so taken with the fact that I was actually able to finally acquire some gorgeous golden at the end of not such a great day of shooting that I wanted to keep as much of it in the frame as possible.
That said, having read your thoughts on this I can appreciate that the golden glow coming from the tree does draw too much attention away from the primary subject, and I thank you for opening my eyes to this; one of the main reasons why I love showing my work here on the NPN :^)
OK, as mentioned above, there's really nothing I can think of that will rid this image of those OOF blotches (looking more closely I can now also see the one Vincent referred to on the Lion's paw!), but I've selected certain areas of the tree and brought down the saturation, which I think helps quite a bit, though please feel free to let me know if you think I could do more.
Vincent: I guess "silly" is in the eye of the beholder, so I can't argue with that ;^)
Morkel: There are a few more frames I have of this Lion before and after this shot was taken, however, I've only processed the three poses I liked best so far, but I'll eventually get round to looking at them all again and may well come up with one more pleasing than this. Meantime, seeing as I believe you missed it, here's the link to one of the shots I took before he started moving around that I posted up here a couple of weeks ago, hope you like it better:
http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/ic.cgi?a=vp&pr=181045&CGISESSID=decf8a541eaeb016c0b8be4f6df00fb4&u=11028
Your repost adresses the bright tree very well. I looked at this closely a little pixel peeping I am afraid..
It seems that the OOF patches must be caused by OOF leaves between you and the subject. I do not find them at all distracting.
Cheers
Ken