We came across three Rhino's that had gathered by this watering hole, I decided to go tighter to isolate the subject on this one primarily to capture the nice alert posture and those lovely 'trumpet' ears, constantlt scanning for sounds . There is also, a 'slightly' hidden Ox pecker behind the RH ear as viewed.
Thanks for either viewing or commenting on the previous image.
Steve
Subject: White Rhino (Ceratotherium simum), close-up, head turn, low POV, near water hole
Location: Undisclosed
Camera: Canon 1DX
Lens: 200-400f/4 with Ext HH
Exposure: 1/400's at f/8 ISO400 (could have upped the ISO)
Original format: Portrait, very slight crop from top, FF width
Comments
3 commentsHi Steve,
You had to deal with some pretty harsh light here, but handled it well. What attracts my eye is the eye of the rhino, and those nearly concentric rings of skin wrinkles are just great. I think I would have noticed that "something" was behind the left ear if you hadn't alerted us to that, but pretty sure I wouldn't have figured out it was an ox pecker. My only very trivial nit is that I wouldn't mind seeing slightly more room on the right, with very slightly less on the left. I realize this is full-frame width, so nothing you could do about that if you wanted to. So take that as a "in a perfect world" comment...
Cheers...
Brad
The little bit of catch light makes serves as enhancement, in my opinion. Too bad the op pecker chose to hide!
While we wildlife photographers can get a little stuck in the soft-light ideal, this should jar us out of that rut as it's a wonderful image period, not just a "nice for what you had to work with" shot. The wrinkles and textures are fantastic, as is the setting and comp. I do wish the ox pecker was fully visible, or at least its head/eye was, but it is kind of cool this way too. I did not initially notice it, but I like the splashing water as well, which I presume means the rhino had just lifted its head from drinking? In the end, I think the aspect I like best is the wonderful (and very kind-looking) eye. Very nice natural history portrait.