Baby Onboard
by Ashley Vincent
Canon EOS 7D, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM MK II + 1.4x Extender @192mm, Aperture Priority @ f/8 (1/2500 sec), 0 EV, ISO 800, Handheld, JPEG from RAW, About 50% of Full Frame
Some of the forested areas in Southeastern Madagascar are split by agricultural land, fields and roads, which for the Verreaux's Sifaka (a species of diurnal Indri Lemur) are too far apart to leap or jump across. Yet every afternoon, rather than stay in the the same patch of forest they spent the day foraging for food in, there are at least a couple of troops that take to the ground and hop, skip, and jump to their preferred trees for sleeping.
Delightfully comical as this method of locomotion appears to us, it's actually a highly efficient, skilled, and swift way for the Sifaka to get from point A to point B, using their outstretched arms and tails to offer extra balance.
The crop you see here is actually a fair bit tighter than the crop I've made for printed versions of this picture, simply because I realised that the printed-version crop may make the subject in the frame too small to see well for some people with smaller monitors.
The original crop I have of this picture shows a fair bit more of the environment, which I actually prefer, as it reminds me more of the setting at the time, in addition to which I like the way it shows the path curving round that corner on the right-hand side working it's way to the foreground as it heads to the left-hand side of the frame, which is the direction mum was heading in.
I'll post the version I have for printing below this, as I'd very much like to receive thoughts and opinion on whether to your eye seeing more of the surroundings in this frame makes for a more pleasing picture (if you can imagine it blown up as, say, an A3 print) or if you think the image appears more appealing with the subject blown up in the frame as shown above.
Thanks in advance for you consideration and thoughts on this!
Comments
5 commentsYep, that's a bit of an eye-catching way to cross the street! I suspect if a human did this they'd catch more than a few eyes!
In answer to your question - I prefer the tighter crop and think I would have the same feeling regardless of image use. To me this image is primarily about the comical method of locomotion and secondarily about the hitch-hiker
Cheers...
Brad