Grazing in Africa

[Rudi van den Heever]

A tranquil scene of hippos grazing on the banks of the Mankwe dam in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve, South Africa. A highly pregnant hippo cow gives new hope to the ever declining numbers of wildlife in Africa. An icon of Africa, fighting for territory against mankind...

Yip, it is a fish eagle in the background!

Equipment: Canon 7D and 500mm F4 L lens & 1.4 teleconverter
Settings: 1/1600s at F5.6 and ISO 200

[Russell Johnson]

This isn't really working for me as is Rudi.

My eyes get lost and there is nothing really grabbing me across the scene. Personally I would look to take it the following way, applied the following adjustments:

1) An inverted average blur layer set to colour and 25% opacity. This helped tame some of the oversaturated colours.

2) A pano crop to remove the immediate foreground.

3) A curves adjusment, around 255 to 225 whilst masking out the bright lights through a lumo mask.

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[Tom Graham]

WOW! A pregnant hippo and a two headed hippo in same picture :S3:
Tom

[Rudi van den Heever]

Hi guys!

Well I suppose that we will have to agree to disagree Russel... Your repost looks "dull" to me and no real contrast...

I would not have selected this image as a "keeper" if it was just for the hippos grazing - the foreground contrast and lines is what makes this image for me and I increased the greens and blues on purpose... the increase in saturation might be too much for some's liking and I will have a look at that... but without the foreground this image might just find its way to the recycle bin... :tinysmile_shy_t: I do not think that the foreground "distracts" from the subjects... it actually compliments them... Sometimes wildlife photography is more an "art form" than just photogrhaping the subject! :e3

Maybe other members agree with you, but I will stick with this version and maybe have a look at the saturation...:w3

[Rudi van den Heever]

Ha-ha Tom! Glad you saw the funny side in this... Also had something like that in mind when I first saw the image...:bg3:

[Russell Johnson]

Hi guys!


Well I suppose that we will have to agree to disagree Russel... Your repost looks "dull" to me and no real contrast...


I would not have selected this image as a "keeper" if it was just for the hippos grazing - the foreground contrast and lines is what makes this image for me and I increased the greens and blues on purpose... the increase in saturation might be too much for some's liking and I will have a look at that... but without the foreground this image might just find its way to the recycle bin... I do not think that the foreground "distracts" from the subjects... it actually compliments them... Sometimes wildlife photography is more an "art form" than just photogrhaping the subject!


Maybe other members agree with you, but I will stick with this version and maybe have a look at the saturation...


Rudi, perhaps it would be prudent to provide this type of information on your artistic intent when making your initial post. I find the whole thing even more confusing as in your OP you were said you were portraying an image that highlighted the fight of pregnant female hippo against the spread of man kind, which it doesn't.




i personally don't feel the foreground adds any dimension of art to the image, as it does not have that deliberate look. The vertical version of this you posted worked far better thanks to the repeating patterns that snaked your gaze towards the Hippo. Sorry to be blunt, this looks more like sloppy composition.

[Tom Graham]

The brownish/purplish foreground confuses and distracts me. At first I wondered if it were a man made wall of some kind, that horizontal light streak reminds me of brick work. But you can tell I'm easily confused :S3: , after looking longer I realized that is indeed -not- a two headed hippo!!!
Tom

[Morkel Erasmus]

Rudi, I don't mind the nice vibrant look you have in the OP. I might tone down just the blue as it seems to be clipping somewhat. :w3
My personal taste is for cropping off the first OOF layer of water plants (the brown/'purple' layer)...

PS: Russel, knowing Rudi, he would be straight-up to say upfront when it accidentally came out like that...and I believe he was merely musing about the plight of wildlife in Africa in his OP statement, obviously he didn't include a human element here to juxtapose...:e3

[Rudi van den Heever]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

No "brownish" portion of the foreground is a darker portion of the water which contains some reeds and other aquatic plants, which is more visible in the vertical version... Will have a look at the saturation!:w3

[peter delaney]

Hi Rudi

have to be honest ... but this image does nothing for me at all... and trust me i love an arty image... Just because u have a line in FG does not make it arty... the subjects heads are all facing down and two hippos bodies are meging ... so the viewer eyes have no focus... the fish eagle and BKG detracts...
satuartion is subjective but the greens are too distracting...all in all for me this is not "art image" imo

but its your image and as long as u like it... then thats fine ..

but pls I find this comment condescending..
Sometimes wildlife photography is more an "art form" than just photogrhaping the subject!


peter

[Rudi van den Heever]

"condescending" = betrays a feeling of patronizing superiority... Sorry for that Peter...:w3

Will have a look at the saturation as already indicated... :e3