Borneo Pygmy Elephant

[Nancy Bell]

The Borneo Pygmy Elephant is the smallest of the world elephants at 2.5m. The Asian Elephant is 3.4m and the African Elephant is 4m. The Borneo Pygmy Elephant is very endangered with maybe a 1000 left in the wild. They require rivers and mineral salts and are now concentrated in a very small area in northeastern Borneo. Hunting, habitat destruction for palm oil plantations, encroachment by people, etc. are among the pressures. From a boat were quite thrilled to watch a small herd approach the river and eventually enter the water and swim to the other side. At some point I put my camera down and just watched with awe.

Canon 1Dx, Canon 200-400 f4 L IS with internal 1.4 @ 560, 1/800, f7.1, exp. comp. +1/3, ISO 1000

c & c most appreciated

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Wow Nancy I love this. The POV is just super, the eye and the raised trunk all add to the image. Great colors and sharpness as well. Thanks for sharing this, well done.

[Karen Pleasant]

I agree with Sanjeev! Really a wonderful image and poignant story about their struggle to survive! What an experience! The raised trunk and eye are riveting. I really like the DOF you chose, too. Thank you so much for sharing such a delightful image!

[Andrew Merwin]

I like the DoF & the perspective. The detail is excellent. I especially like the raised trunk & the eye. Thanks for sharing this one.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Nancy - You certainly had a great opportunity and made the most of it. Love the low pov. Great detail and texture. The visible eye and raised trunk take this up a notch. I can also see a version with some of the foliage cropped from the top. Keep them coming but also save some of these endangered species for September's Theme - wildlife on the IUCN Red List.

TFS,
Rachel

[haseeb badar]

Hi Nancy -- What an image !! terrific angle and the raised trunk and that eye makes this image for me , still i feel it is a bit on higher side of the contrast , but thats a personal opinion !! TFS !

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Nancy!

Amazing little ellie, small indeed, but very serious and that trunk means business:)

There are certain features in this frame I like a lot, among those the eye of the ellie and the tiny ears... at the top of my list are those fine hairs on its head - very nice detail overall. Sharpness is there, lovely warm colours, perhaps the shadows a tad too dark in places but not a deal breaker. Love the environment included with the dense foliage behind the subject, the splash and those bits of vegetation floating about add a sense of movement.

A playful-looking and mischievous little character and you captured him so well, another lovely surprise from you Nancy, thank you, very enticing and now I want more...

Kind regards,

[Nancy Bell]

Thank you very much, everyone! Just now when I opened the image and scrolled down from the top I thought cropping down would be a good idea, as suggested. And Rachel, thanks for the note on September's theme. Haseeb, as you noticed, I used stronger contrast in this image and wondered how it would look. Maybe a bit less...

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Nancy .... what a great sighting , you seem to be spoiled with a lot of stuff on that trip .
You have a great low POV which cannot be better from my POV and the raised trunk and visible eye balls are really stunning .
From my POV the image does look over processed with two much of contrast in the whole frame , from my POV well worth to try a version with a lot lower contrast in the blacks and whites . I would back off on the contrast in the BG and FG to make the subject more standout .

But this is still a great frame , Nancy :5
TFS Andreas

[Nancy Bell]

Andreas, thank you as always for your insightful analysis. I still struggle with the contrast and details issue in post-processing. I so much appreciate all the feed back from everyone.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nancy this is a precious shot - love it!
I agree with Rachel that I'd like to see some space shaved off the top as well?
Andreas makes a good point too - it looks like you pushed the clarity slider in LR/ACR a bit too far? Try decreasing global clarity by 20 and then selectively brushing clarity back on the subject only...

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks for your advice Morkel. I agree about a bit too much clarity.