Desert Elephant

[Rachel Hollander]

Another image of a desert elephant from Damaraland, Namibia. Taken in August 2012.

Canon 5D3
70-200 II @ 200mm
1/800
f5.6
ISO 400
EC +.33
HH from safari vehicle, cropped for comp, straightened, levels, curves, selective color adjustments, NR to bg, sharpened in CS6.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Not viewing on the home monitor, but I just love the earthy tones and the overall composition/story of this image, Rachel. :5
Let's see what others say and let me look at home to give proper technical critique.
:cheers:

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Rachel, what makes this image very attractive to me is the barren landscape. The elephant seems to "eye" that green bit in the corner-I wish you had more of it in the picture:S3: I am not that good at technical stuff, I leave that to Morkel... Beautiful sighting, I really enjoyed viewing this!

Kind regards,

Gabriela

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks very much Morkel and Gabriela. Gabriela - there was another elephant standing near the green with only a sliver of its head visible on the right hand edge so that's why I cropped to where I did on that side, to remove the part of the elephant.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

I see-- thank you Rachel, now it all makes sense! Still I am glad you left the green bit, makes it interesting!!!

Kind regards,

[Jamie Douglas]

:5 Rachel, what a barren landscape, besides the wee spot of lush green on the lower RHS. I gather that is where this elephant was heading judging by the head angle. Nice PP work.

[Andre Pretorius]

Like the DOF with 5,6; the green is in focus; the rest of barren landscape not. Emphasize the fact there is always hope.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Jamie and Andre, much appreciated.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, I think overall we have been treated to a nice feast of images, well processed, interesting content & composed nicely, however I do feel this one is lacking in both comp & content for me, sorry. It sounds harsh, but Rachel knows I always try to be fair and it would be wrong to say otherwise. I wonder if cropping the green out to give even more starkness to the scene, plus going B/W?

TFS
Steve :e3

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Steve - no problem, all opinions welcome (even wrong ones:bg3:). Seriously, the fact that people can and do have different reactions to an image is a good thing. This was not one of the first images I processed from my trip so my initial reaction was not a strong one. When I took a second look I thought all the scraggly tree roots helped to emphasize the harsh environment and decided to process it. I'll take a look at b&w.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Cheers Rachel, this is why participating in posting comments good or bad helps the poster and give a good direction in taking the image to the next stage, as more comments gives a clearer course.