Desert Elephant Family

[Rachel Hollander]

Another from my morning with the desert elephants in Damaraland, Namibia. We found them in the riverbed. The sky color is from the ever present dust and mist.

Canon 5D3
70-200 II @ 120mm
1/1000
f7.1
ISO 400
EC +.33
HH from safari vehicle, cropped to remove the rear of another ele, luminosity mask, levels, curves, selective dodging, burning and color adjustments, sharpened in CS5.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, a nice collection of various sized Ele's.

I might just pull in the RHS slider in Levels to around 237 then just apply a Linear Curves overall, just seems to add a little punch. Then with the same crop rationdrag back up from the LH corner to lose the dead tree bark.

TFS
Steve

[Steve Canuel]

Nice little family group shot Rachel. I like the trees and the distant bluff in the BG.

[Morkel Erasmus]

It certainly is great to see these particular elephants here on the forum, Rachel!
Nicely exposed. I agree with Steve's crop suggestion and would even consider a rotation, since there's no horizon I am a bit flustered with the large elephants' seemingly leaning body pose :e3

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Steve, Steve and Morkel. Here's a repost implementing Steve's suggestions. Morkel - I looked at the rotation but did not like what it did to the rest of the image when the biggest elephant was straight, particularly the front elephant.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Russell Johnson]

Great capture of these rarer seen elephant.

Not much to add to the above, though I still feel some more rotation would help on the RP.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, I think the image now looks a little brighter/cleaner with the revisions, cool.

Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Russell and Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Rachel,
late on this one, like the small procession of the elephants in different size.
Composition in the RP is working better likewise the overall tonality, you improved it.
Just asking if there is ,more room for tonal contrast, if you look at the shadows of the elephants on the ground.Looking quite light to me.
Like the overall color.
I do not see any need for rotation, because the first elephant looks quite balanced on the ground.

Cheers Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Andreas, much appreciated and I'll take a look at the tonality.