Leopard - resting

You can tell he's intent on something.  Nice shot.  The grass is no bother.

Hi Steve,

Grass does not bother me. I like the color scheme and poition of the eyes in the frame.  A vertical crop would also work for this guy too,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Jim

Hi Steve,

What I like about this image is that when I look at it I find myself half-expecting the leopard's head to flop down (as it falls asleep). The colour palette definitely works for me, and I think you pretty much nailed the DoF. Nicely done.

On the piece of grass (and I assume you mean the stray one on the LEFT hand side as viewed): While I would LIKE to say "nah, doesn't bother me a bit", the truth of the matter is that my eye went there almost instantly. Which probably means it's a form of distraction and takes away from my appreciation of the image. It stands out so much because it's in very sharp focus and the background behind it is so OOF - thus there's a lot of eye-grabbing visual contrast there. I'm not much of a cloner at all (and try - mostly successfully - to limit my "cleaning up" to artifacts of the photographic process, like dust spots on the sensor) and I'm not advocating you clone it out. But I've been noticing an almost "photographic political-correctness" out there these days with comments like "hey...it was there" and, along the way, an acceptance (and I'm not sure it's alway truthful acceptance) of some pretty major distractions. And I'm not sure I agree with it. Just thinking out loud...

Anyway - my completely honest comment is: Very nice shot and I believe the photographer did a great job of capturing the moment. But I think it would be even better without that darned piece of grass! 

Thanks for sharing it Steve...

Brad

What a handsome leopard, Steve! Beautiful open light with great detail and a natural-feeling composition. Very nice. No worries re grasses from me!

Thanks folks and interseting to have perhaps a split in thinking on the grasses.

Brad, once again a very informative, concise and contructive reply. I agree 100% on your thinking about this wave of PC in manipulation. Being honest, if there is a small distracting element and removal enhances the image then yes I will do it, who knows apart from the author. It's the big changes that can now be done due to the advancement in software are ones to concerned about. 

A few years ago a photographer who was speaking at a seminar was highlighting how good it was to have a background they could place behind a bird set-up to provide that ideal backdrop, but then was damming cloning. I'll let you make up you own minds on which is right, or are both acceptable/wrong?

Anyway thanks again.

cheers
Steve

Hi Steve, I am in exactly the same camp here as Brad. As you know already, I have been trying to stay away form much cloning myself, but I do find the grass stem on the left distracting enough, that I might have cloned it also. It still works either way because it is a good image.