Madison Morning II

Jerry, I like this one much more than the first. Nice color, detail and sharpness on the elk. The large dark area in the BG I do find to be a bit of a distraction. Thanks for sharing.

Jerry this is awesome. The elk's details are very sharp with a great head turn. I really like your choice of composition and the deep grass makes a nice foreground. Lighting was flattering too. Great shot!

Hey Jerry,

OK - amazing difference for me in appeal to this image compared to your last elk post (having the head closest to the camera as opposed to the butt makes a big difference! ). I like the lighting, the pose, and the composition - nicely done.

On the background: while I like that it's of a much darker tone than the subject, there does seem to be a fair amount of tonal compression (blocking up) going on back there - almost as though some bright portions were brought down too far and you ended up with a lot of different tones becoming the same shade of gray. And it then ends up looking kinda funkadilly - or almost like a high-contrast water colour (like you see here). While I'm not saying that this is exactly the cause, but often if one adjusts bright areas by working the highlight tool too much this can happen.

Cheers...

Brad

PS: I bet you didn't know "funkadilly" was defined as a high contrast water colour, eh??

Brad,

You're absolutely right. I did go too far in pulling down the background.

Lovely head turn in excellent light; a really nice pose. I agree with Brad on the background, but it looks like you can avoid that by adjusting your post=processing. I kind of wish there was a bit more room at the bottom for the elk's virtual feet, but the vegetation is interesting enough it's not a serious problem. A very handsome bull shot.

Very nice, Jerry. Nice bull and a good pose. Nice rack and a majestic pose. I'm sure he'll be impressing the girls this fall. Light on the coat is not too intense which leads to natural colors and real sharp detail in the coat. I guess I'd have to agree with Brad's assessment of the BG but the elk has my attention and I try to ignore the BG. Good job.

Nice pose, light, and foreground. Background is a little busy and somewhat distracting. Overall, a very nice image.

Jerry, I wanted to add that I liked the fact that the highlighted part of antlers is against the darkest background, while the shadowed parts are against the brighter tree. I, too, much prefer this one and think you will do it justice with just a little rework on the background.