A Day at the Spa

[Rachel Hollander]

This Dagga Bull really enjoyed his mud bath at the edge of a waterhole in South Luangwa N.P., Zambia. He rolled back and forth in the mud so I wanted to show a bit of the movement which I think this does with the bit of blur on the legs and the falling mud. I know some won't like that there's no eye contact but the one's with eye contact don't show the behavior as well.

Canon 5D3
100-400 II @ 400mm
1/350
f5.6
ISO 1600
HH from safari vehicle, cropped from bottom and a sliver off each side, levels, curves, color adjustments, sharpened in PSCC.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Rahul Sachdev]

Reminds me of Mr. Ox from Kungfu Panda somehow :) . Nice moment. I don't know if its just me but I probably will reduce the foreground by an inch or so.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Another Theme image, thank you for sharing Rachel. I am afraid I have very few of those, the draught here lasted two years.

This is a cheerful frame portraying a behaviour aspect of the species: Buffalo love to wallow in mud, and especially during the heat of the day. Indeed it would have been great to see some "eyes" there, but IMO the action you have captured is sufficient to grab the viewer's attention. You also managed to bring out some nice textures and colours on what would otherwise be a bland coat of mud - nice PP work! I also like the slight blur from the feet as it adds to the movement, as well as the flying mud and water bubbles.

Enjoyed viewing, also toying with the idea of showing you that lion I was talking about, let us see what I can do...

Kind regards,

[Jonathan Ashton]

Looks good to me Rachel, the eyes don't matter to me at any rate. I like the slight blurring of the left forefoot.
Certainly having a ball isn't he?

[Steve Kaluski]

I quite like the 'behavioural' aspect here Rachel and the trailing mud from the antics of the Buff. Nice tonal range, although I might look to slightly darkening the FG and see if you can a bit more detail. It could also work in B/W as an option? The framing works and I like the head being off-set to the left. Not convinced on the SS aspect and retaining some blur, as I think you needed less, but it's on the cusp, so here I would have gone for more SS for a sharper image and avoided any blur, but just my take.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments and suggestions. Yes, he certainly seemed to be enjoying his wallow.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Rachel works for me as behavior shot ...
I think SS is very much borderline ....but you did somehow well .Overall i might drop the sharpening as i feel some slight artifacts are visible in the HL , sharpen through an inverted green channel at 50 % opacity might help .A bit thin in the mid tones and 1/4 tones ...might be just me .
Must have been funny to watch this big boy rolling in the mud .
Was the situation overall that yellow .....? Well it might be in South Luangwa .

TFS Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Andreas, and yes, in this area of the park and at this waterhole in particular everything was very yellow. And it was fun to watch him roll around. He seemed oblivious to everyone else around which included us, 4 other buffaloes, a few hippos, crocs, zebras, impala and eles at various places around the large waterhole.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Basil Dardagan]

Capturing the 'joy' these buffs seem to feel when wallowing is no easy feat and you have nailed this imo !!

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Basil