Into the land of mirages...

[Shreyas Mantri]

Miles and miles of a saltpan, with temperatures soaring to 100 degrees F - In this land of mirages, the sighting of an animal in the distance gives a subtle yet profound sense of tranquility.

Shot in harsh daylight. Canon 7D, Manual, f/5.6 @ 1/4000s, ISO 400.

Comments always welcome!

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Shreyas,

as I have seen the Etosha last Oct and it's surrounding, I would prefer this image a bit more less "color"more B&W. But this is up to everybody's taste.
The light there is indeed very harsh during daytime. I like the Landscape and Ostrich in the BG very much, as Etosha is out on the pan :bg3:
Might could take a bit more of the harsh light of the giraffe! IMOH

Ciao
Anette

[Rachel Hollander]

Shreyas - the conversion is often a good way to deal with the harsher midday light and all the whites of Etosha. I agree with Anette that perhaps a bit less sepia tone might enhance. I like the comp very much.

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

I like the mood here and the idea behind the conversion, Shreyas. I too feel your hand was a bit heavy in applying the sepia tint :w3.
I took the liberty of reducing that in this repost, along with an alternate crop suggestion (although I like the dead space on top too!) - I also applied some more contrast to the subject.

Your histogram also wasn't optimised (blank space on the RHS of your current white point) so I brought the whites slider in and dodged the whites on the giraffe some more

WDYT?

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi shreyas,
like the idea behind the image of this Etosha scene.
Good composed in OP and made it a bit better by Morkel in RP.

Agree with the other comments on toning and contrast.

TFS Andreas

[Shreyas Mantri]

Thanks all for your suggestions!

@ Morkel, I like your toning, and the contrast on the giraffe is also looking great, but I personally like the space as in the OP. Thanks for re-working this!

@ Anette, looks like I may've been one of those cars that you were watching the Elephants with at Nebrownii in October :S3: True, very harsh afternoon light!