Photographed in the Serengeti, Tanzania in April. We watched the male lion follow the female and it appeared he was most interested in her. This is her response! Eventually they laid down together and every so often he would lift his head and look at her. She continued to snooze. We finally left them that way.
I added a bit of canvas on the left side as I cut it too tight and was lucky enough to have taken a series of photos in sequence and easily borrowed from the previous photo. Any suggestions on how to make this more dynamic?
Canon 20D, Canon 70-200 f4 L IS, F4.5, 1/1600, ISO 400
Hi Nancy I like the interaction and works for me, the female expression is great ... also the male not being impressed !!! To make it more dynamic you would need cooperation from the big guy :)
Would darken image a bit more except for the lions head area, did well with harsh light !!! Can also crop a bit from the top which will focus more on the action !!! Excellent !!!
Al had some great points. Figured I would try the PS fix suggested. Reverse s-curve adjustment to lower contrast; levels to darken image & masked out lions. Hue/Saturation to increase Sat. I lost in download.
Hi Robert This is what I was thinking, nothing complicated. You know what they say ... it takes 100 PhotoShop Professionals to change a lightbulb ... one to change it and the other 99 to tell you a different way !!! ..it is so true :)
All you need here is to darken using the burning tool (or similar) at very low opacity, then dodging tool (or similar) at very low opacity. Then just smooth out the harsh shadow line under head with clone stamp by sampling form one side then the other at low opacity (mostly dark to light)
There are a lot of different ways to get to the same place.
The final result goal of both and Al and Robert are correct IMO. I prefer dodge and burn. I'm an old film dog and dodge and burn is a chemical darkroom techinque.
Again, IMO Al's crop is the strongest, feels more balanced. The original had too much room at the top and Robert's was too tight for my taste.
All of that being said, congrats on an animal behavior that is rarely photographed.
Thank you everyone for your ideas and for actually reworking the photo to show me exactly what you all meant!! The cropping was exactly what was needed as well as some color and shadow adjustment. Much appreciated!!
BTW, we visited the lions later in the day and it looked like snoozing was still on the agenda:)