Eye of the ele

[Marc Mol]

My first (image) post for quite a while, it's been a hectic year with a relocation from Australia to Switzerland and all the logistics that are involved.

Getting in the mood here as my wife and I are off to Selous & Ruaha/Tanz for 3 weeks this Wednesday.


It's not always easy to get an open eye shot of an elephant, their large protective eyelashes often shade the eye.This male had sensed my presence as I was crouched down low in a bush hide close to a waterhole. Their rough hide and skin texture always suit a b&w conversion (especially in harsh light) with leaving just the color of the eye.

Mwamba bush camp hide.
South Luangwa NP- Zambia

D3s 500Vr 1/1250s f/5.6 ISO400

C & C most welcome

Cheers
Marc

[Markus Jais]

Great idea. Black and white with the colored eye works great. I like the tight composition.

Markus

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Marc - Welcome back (assuming it's the Marc I know and you have just shortened your name). I'm not sure about this one. I think you needed more dof and for the oof tusk to be sharp for this to really work. Perhaps going even tighter to a square crop and eliminating the tusk would work better.

Nice to see you posting and thanks for jumping in and commenting on other threads as well. I hope you'll have time to continue to participate and I'm looking forward to images from your upcoming trip.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Marc,
like the idea that you had in your mind, i am fine with DOF and the crop, the OOF tusk does not bother me.
What makes this not working for me is the overall tonality , i do feel you lightened the shadow areas too much and the mid tones are having no depth, so i would try a different approach and i think it would work better, at least for me.

Hope others will chime in with their thoughts.

TFS Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Marc, nice to see you back and I'm sure you will be back up to speed on commenting too, good to have another pair of eyes & thoughts.

Well I hate to say it on your first post, but it's not grabbing me. Not a lover of the crop, detail is lacking partly due to DOF, but like Sanjeev's image, tonally it just looks flat, emphasised with the eye, as I feel the colour jars with the B/W. I would like to see this just in colour, but then to play with the lights & darks to give form to the image. Because to me it lacks 'tone' all the folds, features etc get lost within the comp and so so just see a sea of grey with this striking eye.

Marc you know me well enough that I always try to be honest in my replies, but we all see things differently and I guess this image is one of those.

Look forward to more and hope/know your forth coming trip will be fruitful.

TFS
Steve

[Martin Dunn]

Marc, I like the idea of the colour eye against B+W skin. I think it was well worth the experiment.
For me there are 2 issues that don't quite work.
1> the crop - Elephants lend themselves very well to tight crops because there is so much detail and texture in their hide. I feel in this instance that you have not maximised the wonderful textures that are there and the tusk just doesn't work for me.
2> The eye is very striking but because the rest of the image is B+W it looks a bit gimmicky. I believe that the elephant hide is a good enough grey for you to leave it in colour and still create the contrast you want by playing with the textures.

[Steve Canuel]

Looking forward to more images from you Marc. A little darker and softer on the skin works better for me on this one.

[edwardselfe]

I think a more natural high contrast b&w would work better.

That Mwamba hide is excellent but guides often take people there in the middle of the day. I would go there instead of a game drive at the end of the dry season and see what shows up - there's better light in the early part of the day too.
Ed