Red deer mating (explicit content)

I went for a walk in my local park (Margam) on Saturday and took this shot, now, just suppose it was one of yours, what would you do to it to present it better? This is full frame as shot.

Usually I'd crop some off the right and top and clone out that 6 legged deer in the foreground, not that I'd be trying to cheat or fool anyone by doing so, but that's how I'd "clean it up", I'm self taught more or less and have probably picked up some bad habits.

I'm relatively new to this site and I'm keen to learn and improve my skills and it seems that things are done differently on here, probably for the better I may add, so what should I do to this image?

I have some more which are composed better with the deer over to the right and no other deer in the frame, just the 2 lovers but this one's the best as regarding pose and um, detail if you know what I mean

My wife wants a pet stag now, can't think why though.

Sony A350
Sigma 50-500 EX
1/500th sec
f7.1
ISO 400
420mm
+0.7 stop exposure compensation
Centre-weighted metering
Tripod
A big thank you to Mark for help with my stalking skills.

Covering myself with a brown dressing gown with deer antlers strapped to my head seemed to work a treat mate, that's what you said wasn't it?

It needs a crop to throw the lovers off centre, from the right I would add. It is rather explicit and practically the whole shot is in focus, as are the two hinds below, difficult to isolate the subject. I would crop, see how it works. I would not be above cloning out the two lower deer, but only for web use, would not work for stock or print I think. Maybe desaturate the main attraction a little, drop the reds down and maybe it will not draw the eye so much. Since I am at work I can't spend too much time looking, we have filters

I wouldn't do a lot to it myself. I would have perhaps tried to keep in the deer at the bottom of the pic since Stags tend to have a harem around them at this time of year anyway. I think cropping from this image just wont really do it any justice in my opinion, albeit a little from the RHS might weight it a bit better. I think you should be happy with the others that you have and enjoy this as a good bit of NH recording and behaviour even if not technically perfect.

Brett

Brings a whole new meaing to:

Large versions can usually be found in my gallery.

Seriously, this is a great piece of natural history recording. As the third/fourth deer are in shot I would have preferred to see all of them. You just about have enough space at the top of the frame to do that. I agree that it would be nice if you could get the lovers more to the right hand side of the frame, but of course we don't know looking at it whether that would have simply brought in more distractions.

David

Well i did blush when I saw this agree a great piece of history recorded I would have liked to have seen all of the other deer

I agree that keeping the two forward hinds in shot would have been the better option with the stag more to the right. As you were shooting with a zoom you could have pulled out a bit! I may try to get to Margam myself this weekend so I hope the rut is still ongoing.

If it were mine Geoff I certainly wouldn’t crop it, now about the photograph, it’s a sham about the animals in the foreground, to clone or not to clone /.

Bob.

I would give it a slight crop and leave it at that,

I'd leave this image alone Geoff, a great piece of natural history mate! Well done
Paul.

"As you were shooting with a zoom you could have pulled out a bit" - Looks to me like he did
Great capture Geoff. I wouldn't crop it either.

In the moment a great capture, great attibrutes of nature, eventho technically a bit off.