Normally I would not even bother trying to shoot into the light, but I had heard some tips that made me want to give it a try in this unique situation. On a wildlife photo safari in Kenya, I created this image at 6:44am, which was about 3 or 4 minutes after sunrise. A fairly large group of zebras had walked past and kicked up a bunch of dust, and the sunlight shinging through the dust is what created the background. I added contrast to enhance the image by raising the 'whites' and lowering the 'blacks', and by lowering the 'shadows' and raising the 'vibrance' when editing the raw image. I also lowered the exposure by an additional .3 in post processing. The result of those edits is what you see here.
When I first saw the raw file I noted that it was sharp, and the light shinging through the mane of the zebra looked pretty cool. But enhancing the yellow and increasing the contrast is what really made the image appealing to me. This ended up as one of my favorite images from my trip, and for what it's worth, I created it while breaking the conventional rules and shooting into the light. So I guess I learned that sometimes it pays to think outside the box.
I admit that compositionally, folks will probably point out some flaws. Feel free to do that to help me gain some additional perspective .
Here are some of my own thoughts: I found myself wishing I had not mounted the 1.4x extender because I could not fit the entire body of the zebra in the frame. I think I would rather have captured the entire body of the zebra, but in spite of that, I do like what I ended up with given that limitation. I caught the zebra looking straight at me when I had an upper center focus point active right on the subject, so I fired rather than take time to recompose. I love the eye contact. Usually I do not like to locate the subject in the center of the frame, but honestly I do not think it detracts from this particular photo. I have wondered if the composition might have been better if had I aimed a litle more to the left. But who knows, maybe I would have missed the shot. You may like this image or you may not, but I thought I'd post it here and get some feedback. Image Settings: 1/400 @f5.6, iso 1600 at -1/3 EV, Canon 1DX, EF500 f4 IS lens and 1.4x extender (700mm)







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It's quite bold in colour & content. 


