Common Squirrel Monkey

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Photographed from a skiff in Peru last June while on a black water tributary of the Amazon River. These characters were as curious of us as we were of them. C&C welcome.

D4S, Nikon 500mm + 1.4 TC, 1/1000s, f 6.3, ISO 800, Monopod.

Geoffrey

[steve torna]

Hi Geoffrey, Im not much of a tech guy and I am not familiar with squirrel monkeys but to me the pose and the look on this guys face definitely portrays his curious if not mischievous nature. It looks like maybe he came down to investigate your presence. I really like the image. steve

[haseeb badar]

Hi Geoffrey -- Lovely looking creature !! beautiful colours and tones , nice details as well , i think you done very well here .
I would trim some of the LHS , those leaves looks in excess , i don't find the area behind the monkey at all distracting inspite being backlit .
Overall a lovely image .

TFS !

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Thanks Steve and Hasseeb. Hasseeb thanks for your suggestion. That could work.


Geoffrey

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Geoffrey - Good to see a monkey and I like the overall comp. You get a sense of movement, like the monkey may have just jumped to the trunk of the tree. Can you tell us a little about your pp here? It looks like the monkey may have been underexposed and that you opened up the darks and shadows in post because I am seeing a fair bit of noise on the monkey. I also would have tried to keep my ss a bit higher from a moving skiff, at least 1/1600 and preferably even higher, especially if the monkey was also moving. The leaves look sharper than the monkey. Just my thoughts. I hope you will share more from Peru.

TFS,
Rachel

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Thanks Rachel. I did in fact open up the darks and shadows. I do see a bit more grain around his mouth than I would like. Going in and out of the shaded areas made it tough, but your suggestions are correct.

Geoffrey

[Basil Dardagan]

A great result from difficult lighting conditions imho. The 2 distinctly different backgrounds with the branch separating them is definately something differant

[Dennis Behn]

I agree with Haseeb on the excess of leaves on the left. Perhaps some selective sharpening on the eyes would help to overcome the fact that some of the leaves are sharper than the monkey?? I do really like the pose and the mouth slightly open.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Pleasing image but I don't think the monkey is quite sharp enough.