The gathering

[Roman Kurywczak]

Thousands of these images from my Tanzania tour......hard to pick favorites. The herd just started to cross and the hippos retreated from the chaos. Luckily for the wildebeest the hippos are vegetarian!
Canon 1D Mark lll with the Sigma 300-800@300mm at f/8 for 1/800 sec. and ISO 800 Saved at 53 quality to fit

[gail bisson]

Hi Roman,
I find this image very chaotic and busy. I appreciate how difficult it is to compose this type of image because of the thousands of animals present. I find my eye wandering everywhere and nowhere with this shot. Aaarg, I feel terrible being so negative as I usually love your images.
Gail

[Roman Kurywczak]

Not a problem Gail! I often post images I struggle with too! Even though I took many images of the crossing, I find very few hold their own when compared to what you actually see! This one didn't make my wifes list either:S3:.

[Rachel Hollander]

Roman - I hate to say it but I have the same first impression as Gail. I also find the zebras a bit bright and drawing my eye away from the action. I imagine it is very hard to compose in camera. Interestingly, as I scrolled down, I thought a crop from the top showing a pano only of the animals in the water worked well.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Canuel]

Not to dog pile but I have to agree with previous posters. For me, the gnus in the middle on the shore needed to be pointing in the same or close to the same direction as the zebras. That seems it would've provided the curving line and flow from the gnus in the back to the ones on the right side getting ready to enter the water. Nice to have three different animals in the pic though :S3:

[Ken Watkins]

Roman,

I cannot help but say that this is almost two images in one, in a perfect world the bottom half i.e shoreline downwards would have made an interesting pano I wonder if adding more river at the bottom woulld make this possivle?

The top half is a typical muddle at a crossing shot, reflecting what it genearally looks like, the Gnu sliding down the bank adds some interest.

[Roman Kurywczak]

No problem guys and gals! This is what the forums are all about! Besides the crossing images I posted before, I have a few more that I feel better represent the spectacle. As many of you go to these locations, I want to show you that it is quite difficult to capture the pure "essence" of the event.....if that makes sense. I will share another image tomorrow that adresses some of the issues you all have with this (dang......I have to say my wife was right!).......and I must confess, that I had some reservations on this one too! Thanks for the feedback!
PS Ken typical is what I feel about this too.....I am trying to verbalize how someone can get something more in future posts....make sense?

[Hilary Hann]

Roman, I like Rachel's idea about the river pano and I sympathise with you completely. I'm just back from a migration trip (no river crossings, wrong end of the route) and it is very difficult to picture the darned thing effectively. I wonder just how many wildebeest leaping into the water we have to see before someone gets some ideas on illustrating the migration in a different but also awesome way. Won't be me, sadly ... I failed.

I'd do what Ken suggested and make it two panos, I think it works quite well that way.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Roman, you already know the majority of my thinking for an image like this, but for me, having the WB massing right on the edge of the water, plumes of dust, others cascading down the steep bank walls, some leaping and crossing the river all goes to convey this dramatic scene of this unique behaviour. I feel it just needs that mass collection of WB, the image crammed, wall to wall, all jostling for room and space, close to what you have to the RHS.

TFS
Steve

[Ken Watkins]

Roman,

I hope you do not mind but whilst I have some video rendering (why does it take so long, give me stills any day), I thought I would try part of my suggestion.

Iy is obviously not possible to retain very good quality from the uploaded JPEG, but I would be interested to hear what you think

[Ken Watkins]

And here is the top half

[Roman Kurywczak]

Thanks all.......you will see more and Steve had a sneak peak at some on my blog. Ken, I do like them better! I prefer the hippo with WB.......but I hadn't thought of that and it works!
Great lesson for everybody! Post something you are unsure of, and with all the eyes, you may come out with something you like! Thanks again!

[Pieter de Waal]

Thanks for posting this Roman, a lot of discussion and learning points for me. Look forward to seeing more of your trip.

[Robert Amoruso]

Roman,

I like Ken's two alternate crops.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Roman - even before reading the replies my immediate thought was:
"The zebras are a strong point of interest in breaking the wildebeest-monotony, and the ones sliding down the bank in the BG add interest"
My ideal comp (obviously in hindsight as I'm sure sitting there I would've framed it like you did) would have been the zebras and wildebeest upfront (much like Ken's second pano) but with more space on top for the "falling" herd...WDYT? :e3