Kickin' the dirt

[Marc Mol]

A lone bull dines out by kicking & jabbing on the succulent new runners/shoots of grass on the beautiful rolling plains that is Loisaba- Northern Kenya.

Nikon D5 Nikkor 80-400 AF-S 1/1250s f/6.3 ISO280 @ 400mm. Bean bag from front pax seat, slight lower FG crop. Curve, levels, TK adj, mono conversion with a slight warm tone in ACR & PS CC'15.

Cheers
Marc

[Morkel Erasmus]

I love the atmosphere here Marc, my kind of shot.
I do see a slight halo around the ele and tonal texture on the ele itself seems a bit muddled, perhaps as if you recovered too much shadow? If it was nearly silhouette it could work darker as well?

[haseeb badar]

Hi Marc -- This looks so fantastic , it has a certain mood to it which I loved it ! I too see some halo around the ele ,but very nicely done in terms of conversion and that dust is an essential part of this image . The slightly angled away position of the ele is the only other glitch but not a deal breaker .

TFS !

[Marc Mol]

Thanks Morkel & Haseeb.

I love the atmosphere here Marc, my kind of shot.
I do see a slight halo around the ele and tonal texture on the ele itself seems a bit muddled, perhaps as if you recovered too much shadow? If it was nearly silhouette it could work darker as well?

I did play around with a near silhouette option, however the dust took on the apearance of a cloud and lost all impact against that dark earth unfortunately, and agree I probably pushed the shadows a tad too much trying to extract more detail.

Will have to agree to disagree on the halo, as I'm not seeing any at all and I'm very hard on myself with all attempts to eliminate any. I'm fairly sure it's the dust cloud that is around the ele that is giving that appearance.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Wonderful scene and mood showcased here Marc. Well done.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Marc - A classic elephantscape. Nice placement of the ele in frame and the stormy look to the sky works I agree about the shadow recovery. I see what Morkel is talking about but do think it is just the dust as I see no halo using the levels trick.

TFS,
Rachel

[Mike Poole]

Classic animalscape shot Marc, I love the way the dust is all lit up. Another one tat probably needs to be seen large for the full drama.

Mike