Hunger and a Harsh Lesson in Patience (B/W)

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Friends,

I posted some time ago the same image in colour, but decided to try a B/W for a more dramatic effect.

Image taken in the Kalahari, this is a starving subadult in a pride of many - I think we counted about 12 or 14. No adults were present and we were later told the mothers went hunting, perhaps the lack of success kept them away for about two days or more. Some of the cubs were emaciated and struggled to walk, they were all bundled together under some shrubs in the river bed and close to the road. It was a sad scene to witness. We did not spend much time with them, quite a large number of Nossob campers were present and we were almost at the back of the line. So we moved on to Marie Se Draai in the last light, only to come upon an even more dramatic scene, one I shall never forget and which provided me with a few frames I used to compile my first Story Sequence.

Nikon D4
Nikon 500mm F4
ISO 640
F6.3
1/1000s

Time: 06:41pm

Kindly give me your thoughts on this, I am open to critique and suggestions.

[keith mitchell]

Detail and image quality look great to me Gabriela, must say I do prefer colour old school I suppose. Sounds like these animals have it tough sometimes. Nossob campers ?

Keith.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Gabriela -- The conversion certainly provides a very dramatic feel to the image and especially after reading the story behind it . The subject is placed well in the frame and some nice texture and details on the lion . I find the area of the mouth a bit over-sharpened .

TFS !

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Gabriela - I think this conversion works well with nice toning. Incidentally you don't have an embedded profile and it looks better in PS but definitely oversharpened throughout (not just the mouth area). I remember your description of these cubs. This image doesn't really convey the emaciated look but still works as a portrait.

TFS,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Keith, Haseeb and Rachel,

Thank you very much for your thoughts on this image.

Keith, most of the time I prefer colour but I like to try my hand at B/W as well. By "campers" I meant visitors - or rather, individuals who camp at Nossob in the KTP.

Rachel, sorry about the lack of embedded profile, operator error - thanks for pointing it out. This was the healthiest looking cub and the only one not quite lying down. At some stage one little chap - he was skin and bone really - tried to stand up to go and relieve himself, he was stumbling along and then collapsed. I did not press the shutter out of...what do I call this, respect for this condition?

I did photograph a dying lioness some years back but here I felt I had to leave those youngsters alone. I only took two frames of this healthier looking female cub because I was moved, she was staring in one direction only and seem completely unaware of the vehicles around...I kept thinking this was were mom went a few days back.

And here's an RP for you and Hasseb who noticed the sharpening issue - hope this is better, thank you so much.

Warmest regards,

[haseeb badar]

Hi Gabriela -- Certainly an improvement but i still feel it is a tad more over-sharpened ( particularly on its mouth area )

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gabriela a sad story you are telling here , but that is how the life circle goes , sometimes hard to watch in reality ........ birth and death .
I personally would have also captured the other one ...... as a natural document .

Regarding this frame i absolutely like it , nice conversion and the cloudy BG is stunning for me . Crop works very well and the "sharpening issue " is almost covered with your RP , as a personal note and pref i might go even lower in the light halos ( i hope you know what i mean )

Lovely work my little Sis :5

TFS yours Boetie

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you so much Haseeb, the only sharpening present in my RP comes solely from LR, 40%, radius 0.5. I am quite happy with it, so I think I will leave it as is for now. I really appreciate your time and input:cheers:

And thank you too, my big Boetie. As you say, such is life. I had few good reasons to put camera down and watch. One of them was, I did not want to disturb those sad, longing cubs with the sound of my shutter. It felt like an intrusion. Instead I decided to embrace the whole scene and allow myself to feel. It was a busy environment and the cubs were bundled in groups of four or more under shrubs or wherever they could find shade. It was the end of a hot day and I wondered whether they had been able to drink, as they were not too far from the water. This pause - and just allowing myself to see without looking through the viewfinder - helped me tap into my emotions and much later reproduce a more personal version of what I had seen. With this conversion I tried to emphasise certain aspects which - in my mind - contribute to recreating the moment, and paid attention to the way in which the light fell on the cub's face. The BG looks very cheerful in the colour version, greens at the top (not sky) and golden sand everywhere else. This conversion is so different from the colour version posted last year. It is still accurate as I have not changed anything, but I hope it does give the viewer a better chance of seeing things through my perspective. A different approach and a bit more work, this B/W... Just like the two baboon images I shared last year, and certainly not as easy as portraying a jumping bokkie or a munching mouse:)

Still lots to learn and more experimenting to be done this year. I hope I can begin to identify in the field what makes a good B/W image and think along these lines when I choose my camera settings, it would help me a great deal at home with the PP work.

So let me go find something new to process, not a lot of time available as we are beginning to pack the trailer tomorrow. Lots of preparations ahead. I cannot wait to see those red dunes! And watch the first sunset, and listen to the barking geckos with a glass of red in my hand. Should a lion start roaring in the BG, you will be the first to know...I think there's a tad of signal at Rooiputs:w3

Have a wonderful week-end,

[Daniel Cadieux]

After reading the story we can almost see a certain sadness in the lion's distant stare. I too usually prefer colour, but I find the B/W conversion tastefully done.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you so much Daniel, appreciate your kind words:cheers:

Warmest regards,