I am sharing this image for two reasons - one being, this was an interesting sighting we had last month. I am also asking whether you think I can improve this or should I dump it. Be blunt if you have to, I guess I should have given up on it, it does not show the entire scene and needs a lengthy story for you to understand what was going on. I usually choose better frames to work on, try to compose while shooting so not much cropping during processing, and generally do not to share something shot in poor lighting conditions. But this was quite a special sighting and I only managed two frames, I kept this one for memory sake.
We normally stay on the Botswana side of the Kalahari but sometimes include Mata Mata which is known for its cheetah sightings- a long way to travel from Polentswa, so we spent a night at Nossob camp on the way. That afternoon we took a drive South and came upon what we assumed to be a pride of...fourteen lions. What was interesting was, we could not see any adults at all. What we found was two clumps of subadult lions bundled together in the shade of two large trees and not an adult in sight - so unusual. As we sat and watched them (it was still very hot even though it was about 6:30 pm), from time to time a youngster would get up and walk about, we then realised they were so thin and weak they could hardly move. A few were stronger and fitter than others, my image here shows one of them. What grabbed me most was they all seemed to stare in the same direction, and I assumed this was where the parents were expected to arrive from. These little chaps (from about six to nine months old) were left on their own for almost a week, judging by their condition.
There's a longing on the face of this young lion and I tried to capture that, the dappled light helped with the dramatic aspect to some extent. Some of his siblings were lying in front of him so I had to do a heavy crop to avoid the presence of a few little paws there. The subject is too much in the centre IMO, should I crop a tad more from the bottom of RHS the IQ would suffer too much (I already lost enough). Temperature at the time was 39"C, light rather harsh and some deep shadows to contend with. I took a lot of video shots and only before we departed I captured this for my records. I did my best to lift some of the shadows, brought the HL down a tad, cloned out a few thin blades of grass on the RHS. Brightened up the scene a bit and sharpened to taste, the crop is a tad more than the image could handle- keep or dump?
Nikon D4
Nikon 500mm F4
1/1000s
F6.3
ISO 640
Gimpro support ( Andre calls it the "monstrosity" because of its size and the sheer number of knobs)
Thank you for viewing and for your patience to read my lenghty story,
I think this is a keeper Gabriela. There is that sense of sadness/longing on the face and the illuminated eye makes this a fine image. I like the clean BG. I would try to take a bit off from the right and below if IQ allows. But I like it a lot. TFS.
I must admit my heart sinks a little every time I revisit this image.
I tried to crop from the RHS but felt the IQ dropped tremendously. Shall try again and crop just a tad, thank you. I do not really like the leg cut in the middle but had no choice. The whites on the chin might look blown but the histogram says they are not, I can tame those a little if needed. What I do like a lot is the eye, I have not lightened it one bit because it has a certain sadness about it, as is. Perhaps this is just my (human) interpretation and "sadness" is the wrong word to use, "faint hope" is more appropriate.
Thank you so much for viewing and feedback, really appreciate it.
And I hope you let us know when you plan to come to SA again, we will try find some cheetah for you
Hi Gabriela, the BKG gives nice separation to the subject and you have lovely detail within the subject and I especially love the light in the eye. Personally I would have like the two paws all in with some FG, the truncated legs via the crop is just a bit too tight for me, but we all have different tastes.
Hi Gabriela - You are much too hard on yourself. There is a sort of melancholy feel to the lion's expression. Beautiful light on the eye. For some reason the ears look huge to me. Hopefully he'll grow into them. Nice detail and beautiful creamy bokeh. I agree having the paws in would be better but also understand it's not always possible.
Thank you all so much, after I read your comments I decided I would like to give this another try:)
Steve, I dislike the truncated legs so much just as much as you do, I have an idea how to fix this but not sure yet how to implement it, will have to find a solution for the other lion's paws that forced me to crop so much from the bottom. This is very tight for me too but I wanted to hear it from you Thank You!
Rachel, I am indeed hard on myself, I know:) The ears are huge indeed, the others had even bigger ears because they were starving for about a week, I think - they were thin, this was one of the better looking chaps. I so hope the moms and aunts returned, I might be able to find out but afraid to ask. I convinced myself they were taken care of because they were no longer in the same place the next morning...Thank you so much for your kind comments, I will revisit this image and share with you the outcome.
With so many lion portraits posted it gets difficult to get them to stand out. This one, as well as Sanjeev's recent post, manage to do so. Upon viewing, the first thing that comes to mind are not technical details but "I wonder what this lion is thinking about?" I really like the creamy BG and the warm light. And thanks for the story behind the image.
The dappled light and soft colour tones really work well here, Gabriela. I am glad the light hit the little one's eye.
I am 50/50 on the crop/presentation, as it doesn't bother me as much as chopped-off-feet normally do, perhaps because of the expression and the colours/light.
There are some big lion prides south of Nossob these days, and I suspect the adults of this lot arrived shortly after dark perhaps?
PS: good to see you guys are using the Gimpro, assuming it's the new double rack slide mounted on the doors of the vehicle?
Hi Gabriela i just love this very much from the technical POV , very well executed in PP.
Peaceful looking image with great color /tones and a very nice BG separation . Cut off feet not ideal........ but i wait for the solution .
Sorry for replying very late , so i keep it very short .
Morkel, this was at Marie-se-Draai, we stayed one night at Nossob on the way to Mata-Mata and took an afternoon drive. Those youngsters were starving for some days. The next morning we did not see them, saw spoor though all over the place. I hoped the adults came to fetch them:)
Andreas, I looked at the image again, not easy to fix this. Some other little paws at the bottom of the image. Still thinking about it.
Thank you both for viewing and comments, much appreciated:)
Hunger and a Harsh Lesson in Patience
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Thank You!
TFS Andreas
