Three black rhinos

[Hilary Hann]

On this particular afternoon I asked our guide if we could look for black rhino as we had encountered many white rhinos and I was hoping for some close ups. We came over a rise and found this cow with a wonderful horn with her most recent calf along with the previous calf. Also with her was another cow and calf along with a male so we ended up with 6 in total which was very rewarding. Ended up have quite a few 'close' shaves with this feisty girl.

7D; 100-400 @ 400; ISO400; f8; 1/200 sec; bean bag.

[Morkel Erasmus]

wonderful trio Hilary! you were so lucky - they are becoming rarer and rarer especially with all the poaching...

nice colour tone here, will work well as a desaturated sepia/B&W (see the one I posted earlier on last week or so)

[Hilary Hann]

Thanks morkel, funny you should say about the sepia/b&w because I had prepared one in sepia but went with the colour because people here seem to prefer colour. Perhaps I'll post it later as a comparison.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hilary, WOW. :eek::eek::eek::eek:

IMHO this is your best to date. The Cheetah kill had all the element as a good image, but for me, the colour treatment, POV, content have worked beautifully creating a 'little cracker' of an image and probably one of the best I have seen for quite some time. I do like the OP, but I might consider another colour treatment away from the norm as an alternative approach. Perhaps doing it as a Quad tone, a rich B/W, I think you have my recipe for that as per my Bison image might work too?

Being ultra picky, and you know why, either crop 3mm off the top or smooth out the darker edges at the top of the crop, so it blends better.

Well done Hilary.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Hilary - huge congrats on this one. Not only did you get all the heads up but you got all 6 ears in the same direction. No easy feat with rhinos. Love the comp and color and agree that would work well as b&w or sepia.

Congrats again.

TFS,
Rachel

[Ken Watkins]

I am cofused, is this as taken, or has the colour been changed?

[Vivaldo Damilano]

Fantastic image, getting three black rhino together is very rare for sure. I love that they are all posing for the camera congrates on a fine image TFS

[Todd Frost]

Outstanding work Hilary. Exposure and sharpness look good. Very nice composition. Well done.
TFS
Todd

[Hilary Hann]

Thanks everyone. Steve, I'll do the crop/corrections as suggested and will play with toning. Good idea.

Ken, colours not changed. All I've done is adjust levels and curves. Do you find their colour unnatural? These rhino are in the Laikipia district where the earth is quite red.

Appreciate all the feedback.

[Ken Watkins]

Hiary,

Thanks for your explanation.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Lovely sighting Hillary and the detail is outstanding. They look almost like they are made of stone...Im very fortunate I get to see these guys every couple of days on the reserve I work...Still waiting for a shot of them as good as this though.

[Ofer Levy]

This is great! Pano works very well.

[Steve Canuel]

Another beauty Hilary and one of the best you've posted here. Really like the color tone of this. And of course having the rhinos facing you. Well done.

P.S. I assume the ears are cut as identification markers?

[Hilary Hann]

Thanks Dumay, Ofer and Steve.

Steve, yes, the ear notches are for ID. The female is one of the older cows and doesn't have notches, neither does it appear that her younger calf has yet. I'm supposing that her long slender horn is pretty good identification … let's just hope she gets to keep it.