Cub Stare Down

[Rachel Hollander]

One of the one year old cubs. It's siblings and mom were not far away.

Canon 7D2
100-400 II @ 321mm
1/1600
f5.6
ISO 800
HH, cropped slightly to straighten and for comp, shot vertical, levels, curves, TK luminosity masks, sharpened in PSCC.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[haseeb badar]

Hi Rachel -- I missed your Bear images all this while and here I am with the first image of Bear in the wildlife forum.

I liked the eye contact and the vertical framing works nicely. The blades of grass, sticking out from its mouth are a nice addition to the image. You have handled the light nicely with lovely pp work and nice details in the fur . Liked this one .

TFS !

[John Mack]

The grass is nice my favorite part of this image is those ears.

[Glenn Pure]

Very nice, as usual, Rachel. You have an impressive repertoire of cub shots and nice moments captured including here. The grass in the mouth adds a nice touch as does the expression. Overall lighting adjustments also look more pleasing here to me than one or two of the other recent cub shots. I'd be tempted to clone out the light grass stalk on the left near the cub's leg - I find it a bit distracting.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, I would echo Glenn's thoughts, albeit I know what you will say about the removal of the stick. I think you could loose some of the space off the top without any detrimental effect to the framing. One thing that does strike me is the lower LHC, it's more saturated in colour than the rest and it's not lighting that has created the effect, more visible as a comparison is the FG grass, left to right???

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Haseeb, John, Glenn and Steve, much appreciated. Glenn - As a general rule I do not clone. If it is natural and was there then it stays for me.

Steve - Nothing different done in pp in the lower left corner so it is naturally occurring (maybe closer to water or fertilized by a bear- just guessing).

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Rachel a lovely little critter ....
You have been spoiled with great options at Silver Salmon ....
I like the stare and the blades of grass in its mouth a lot , you have well controlled the lighting with good detail where it counts .
As a personal note i might throw in some tone in the bears HL and i would change the overall yellowish character of the image . Ah yes and i would change the crop to a 4x5 and loose some of the top .
But for sure it is a very nice frame as presented !!!

TFS Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Andreas for the comments and suggestions.