Life & Death

[Brendon Cremer]

The story of Duba Plains is one that will be forged in our hearts and minds for many years to come, through the fantastic documentaries such as "Relentless Enemies" and "The Last Lions" by Derek and Beverley Joubert. If you have had the privilege to visit this great place you will know this is not just a story of lions and buffalo, it is the life of two of Africas greatest beasts and their continual battle against one another to survive, grow and raise future generations, hopefully for many years to come, It is a daily battle of Life & Death. Here the King of Duba walks away with a Buffalo calf kill he stole from one of the lioness. Its a harsh reality that the death of one is the life of another.
Duba Plains, Okavango Delta, Botswana




Camera NIKON D3S
Focal Length 400mm (200-400)
Shutter Speed 1/2000 sec
Aperture f/6.3
ISO 800

[Morkel Erasmus]

Jeepers this is fantastic, Brendon!! :5
Love everything about it, though I would play with a crop from the top to lose the sky, and perhaps extract a tad more detail from the calf carcass?

I still gotta go there...eish
:cheers:

[Andre Pretorius]

This image portray the brute power of the male. Agree with Morkel with crop and calf. Stunning moment well captured.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Amazing sighting Brendon, so well captured, I am green with jealousy:w3 I agree with Morkel and Andre on the crop suggested, I would even go as far as doing a pano crop and cut the image at the top just above the buffalo herd.

I would love to see more images from your trip...what a magic place, Duba...

Kind regards

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Brendon - fantastic image that invokes an array of feelings. I love that the center buff is looking back at the lion. It works for me as presented but so does a scroll crop from the top as suggested by the others. One very small point, there's a small specular highlight just to the right of the right egret. I would remove it.

TFS,
Rachel

[Russell Johnson]

Great capture here, Brendon - I love Duba, and the falling water levels will help for your safaris later in the year.

I personally found the image had a slight cast, so cleaned it up slightly with a curves color adjsutment, wdyt?

128587

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Brendon, the 'Prime minister' at work, nice to see him do something. I'm still not sure if there is a link between Buffalo & vehicle which helps them, if they recognise the shape of the vehicle is the 'mobile kitchen' there or close by, that's if they can make the link between the two? :bg3:

The image can work both ways in terms of crop IMHO and the light there can be harsh at this time of year so nice work. I assume the high SS was from the earlier action? Re PP, personally somewhere between the two for me. Just watch the blue of the water, can be a little tricky.

TFS
Steve

[Brendon Cremer]

Thanks very much guys, much appreciated as always, I have played around with the crop a little and cropped some off the top to exclude the sky and then a little of the bottom too. Tried a little detail extraction from the calf. I have left the colours as is for now as i feel they portray the scene as it was, Russel that for your RP, just a little cool for my liking.

Steve you are 100% correct, the buff almost certainly associate the vehicles with lions and will often lie down a short while after the vehicles arrive if the lions are not yet active. We would often stay concealed behind some bush where possible until the lions started getting going.

[Brendon Cremer]

sorry forgot the RP :tinysmile_shy_t: 128591

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Brendon,
like all about the RP.
Well done it terms of color , contrast and detail.
great image design
the look of that one buff back to the lion makes a big difference .

TFS Andreas

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Brendon,

The RP is best. Agree with Andreas on the buffalo looking back, great one. Color wise is fine for me :S3:
Great image

Have a great day

Ciao
Anette

[BenBotha]

Fantsatic moment and image. Nature is weird-we all are looking and only one buffalo is looking back at one of their own that was killed!

Ben

[Brendon Cremer]

Thanks very much all for your great comments, always very much appreciated.

[mohammad reza shahab]

Amazing image,Excellent Moment.