Mrk III, ISO 400, 500mm+1.4, 0 ev, f/10, 1/800, shot from vehicle with bean bag. I cloned out white rocks that were part of the BG, sharpened, saturated, curves adjusted.
While a friend calls this a prairie prayer, (i.e. please don't shoot me), the behavior depicted in this image is called a jump yip and is*accompanied*by a vocal yip. The prairie dog linguist research that links*behavior*with vocalizations is unsure about the purpose of the behavior. However, here are a few speculative thoughts: 1) all clear; i.e. predator is gone, we are safe now, 2) territorial; this is my territory, 3) stating location; i.e. I'm over here and so on through out the colony.
Hi Andrew - I like this - looks like he is praying to a higher power - I might crop some from both sides to make it more of a vertical pano type - would accentuate the looking to the sky feel.
I like it.
TFS
Hi Andrew, Interesting pose and agree with Lance's crop suggestion. Also agree the image looks a bit oversharpened. Warmer light would have improved the image...
Great pano suggestion and can't think of a better pose !! Thanks for the bg info !! I always look for these guys when in your area but generally is winter ... not easy to spot :)
Greetings. Love the pose... I find this overall too contrasty (particularly in the background). Luckily, the background is almost all midtones, so the subject for which the contrast ranges from darks to highlights can be isolated by flattening the midtones. I also picked up the luminance values from predominantly the green channel for this version (channel mixer monochrome + luminance blend), but that was probably overkill (wanted to let you know that this version had a little more work than just the curves).
I also actually like the aspect ratio, but cropped slightly from bottom and left to give space to, er, pray into. ;)
Jump Yip
