Golden Yawn

[Brendon Cremer]

We come across one of the lion prides early one morning. The pride began to wake and survey the area for the buffalo herds that were a little distance away on the horizon. The fresh morning together with the rising sun producing some great natural backlighting provided us with some great photographic opportunities.

Duba Plains, Okavango Delta, Botswana

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[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Brendon - nicely done with just the right amount of detail for me. The tongue out and morning breath visible add to the image. In a perfect world her head would be angled a bit toward you rather than away but in this case I don't think it's a major issue. If it were mine I would crop a sliver from the top to remove the brightest yellow.

TFS,
Rachel

[Girish Prahalad]

lovely backlit situation. the comp works well as presented.
would sharpen the image a bit to highlight the rim light & the some.

[Stan Cunningham]

OK OK, duba plains in now officially on my bucket list. You are killing me with these shots. Agree with Rachel on the perfect world tilt of the head but it's still a wonderful shot. The yellow at the top does not bother me but it's a matter of personal taste.

[Loi Nguyen]

Brendon, this is another great image of yours. Head angle alley mentioned. I like the trees in the BG. The bright part of the sky on top needs to be there I think for this image to make it a Golden Yawn. Loi

[Dumay de Boulle]

I love it...Amazing colors and exposure!

[Gregor Bergquist]

WOW! It is a killershot. I love the colors.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Wowza...cracked this one wide open Cremer! :5
Just the right amount of detail/contrast for me...and perfectly exposed as usual...
I personally like the framing with the OOF treeline at the back and the yellow of dawn above it - for context.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Brendon, agree with the above, but wonder if you have cranked the saturation up a bit, hence the luminosity/solarisation outline on the horizon?

TFS
Steve

[Brendon Cremer]

Thanks very much all, much appreciated. Steve the original was substantially warmer and more saturated out of camera, i dropped WB from 4650 to 2850 and then added only +15 Vibrance and the +8 saturation.

[Steve Kaluski]

OK, thanks Brendon. I did try adding Levels 5:0:252 as these are the numbers just before it clips, then added a Channels Curves adjustment, but hard to tell on the laptop. The trouble is, it starts to posterise on the neck & back?

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Brendon, super image. I like it very much. Good advice has given already :bg3:

Have a great day

Ciao
Anette

[edwardselfe]

Perfect - nice tones, good transition between colours and perfect breath!!
Ed

[Carole Deschuymere]

Hi Brendon, all I can add to this is wow!! great image, great comp, don't mind about the yellow on top, and above all: makes me want to go to Duba plains (well this and a lot of your other amazing pictures...) TFS Carole