Forest King

Gallery: WildlifePosted August 14, 2012211 views6 comments

Again - Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe. I should really start digging into other archives...but this place has me spellbound.

We found this male lion in the forest on the last full day of our safari - he had been roaring all night so we knew there was a possibility of finding him. I wasn't on foot here, for obvious reasons.

I placed him close to the edge at the bottom as I composed to leave most of the road out of the frame (he was lying on the edge of the 2-track road running through this section of the forest). He was roaring his heart out, and the morning light was just beginning to hit the trees.

Magical moments.

Techs:
Nikon D3s with Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II + 1.4x TC @ 700mm
f5.6 @ 1/250 SS @ ISO-1400
supported on Badger Beanbag over Land Cruiser door
Full frame

PS: click on the larger image, you know you want to

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by John Launstein on August 14, 2012 at 11:37 PM

Morkel: this is a truly magnificent image. I love it. In fact, it's one of my favourites of yours, and there is a lot of great competition for that distinction.

Personally, I am a huge fan of your composition here. I love the extreme placement of the lion and the "unnecessary" height of the image. Just fantastic result IMO. Great balance and graphic feel, and I like the dark foliage at the top.

I'm sure there will be some who say the sunlit tree trunks and limbs in the background draw the eye, and I guess they do, but somehow it all still works and works powerfully. The expansiveness of the background just helps the viewer hear the echo of the roars.

Exquisite work.

Registered on April 5, 2011, 223 Posts, 1193 Comments

Comment posted by Jenaya Launstein on August 15, 2012 at 3:14 AM

Gorgeous image! Wonderful lighting you got to work with. Must have been an amazing experience getting to watch him roar!

Registered on February 8, 2011, 254 Posts, 1302 Comments

Comment posted by Jorne de Bruin on August 15, 2012 at 5:54 AM

Some sweet light and an even better subject! I like how you;ve composed this, especially with the road limiting your options!

Registered on June 26, 2008, 178 Posts, 2136 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on August 15, 2012 at 5:06 PM

Hi Morkel,

Very sweet light and not too bad of a subject to boot!

I like the composition here - strongly grounded subjects like this usually work well for me. And overall your exposure here is quite excellent (not any easy task here). I guess I'm one of the ones that John is referring to when he says "I'm sure there will be some who say the sunlit tree trunks and limbs in the background draw the eye" - on my monitor a couple of those trunks are a tad too bright for my taste (but I acknowledge that differences in monitor brightness may easily mean that what I'm looking at might be different than what you - or John - are looking at). But this is a really minor nit and overall a very strong image.

Cheers...thanks for sharing this...

Brad

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on August 16, 2012 at 1:18 PM

Morkel, another neat shot! I have looked at this several times, at times trying to see if it felt better with a little cropped off the top, given the very low placement of the subject. Finally I decided, the out of focus dark horizontal branch at the upper left is critical to balance the low right lion. So...I think you have it just as good as it can be!

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments

Comment posted by Morkel Erasmus on August 20, 2012 at 4:50 PM

Thank you all for your very kind comments.

Brad - I will tweak those highlights on the trees and see if I can tone them down without diminishing the mood I wanted to convey

Registered on March 22, 2011, 385 Posts, 2068 Comments