by Bryan Grundy
This is my first post in the Wildlife gallery, though I expect that this is where I'll be posting most often. I most frequently photograph wildife at Point Reyes National Seashore--where I took this shot--and the vegetation and foggy atmosphere in this photo are quite representative of this area. While it is common to see evidence of badgers at Pt. Reyes, this individual is the only one that I've been lucky enough to photograph. I encountered the badger along a trail in the middle of the morning and was able to observe it for a few minutes before it continued on its way.
I applied a tone curve and brought out the blacks since the foggy conditions resulted in a very flat image. My goal in processing was to make the badger pop a little but still maintain the foggy atmosphere. Uncropped.
D600 and 200-400mm at 400mm, 1/1000sec, F5.6, ISO 400
Comments
6 commentsI reallly like this image. Great selective focus, and you did make the badger pop. Not sure, but maybe crop the dark background at top to further accentuate the badger?
Hello Bryan
Looks good! Don't see too many badgers on this site, So Great to see a good one! Where is Pt. Reyes ?
Cheers
Bill
www.BillBickle.com
Hi Bryan,
I like this photo. Cropping off the top may strengthen the comp, but I like this one as you have presented here...................Jim
The detail of is good, with eye reflectivity and texture in both blacks and whites. I agree with the idea of some crop to make him larger in the frame, given there is not much visual interest in the surrounding habitat.
Nice find, Bryan. I think the foggy atmosphere comes across well here, and I like the grassy surroundings. I too think that a crop would help, though perhaps not a big one since the inclusion of the grass is a plus in my eyes. If you have the pixels, eliminating the top dark areas could help as Jim suggested, but I think you could at least find a better placement for the subject by cropping slightly from the left and bottom.
Max
Thanks for the suggestions. I agree that the image would probably be stronger without the dark green in the background, but I generally keep image ratios to 2x3 and eleminating the green while keeping the crop ratio eleminated too much of the environment for my tastes, though I can see why not everyone likes all the dead grass. Nevertheless, here's a version with just the top cropped off. I cropped a little more than necessary so that the badger isn't centered vertically in the frame. Max, I agree that cropping a little from the left and bottom is another way that I might improve this image.