Hello everyone, Thank you for all your comments and suggestions to my previous post , much appreciated.
Here is another image for this months theme .
A herd of Asiatic elephants came down on the river bank to cool themselves. As compared to their African cousins, the Asiatics are quite shy and one of the reason can be attributed to their frequent confrontations with humans. So, this particular individual was also reluctant to come down for a drink in our presence. As we pulled ourselves back for the elephant to come over , the matriarch made a sound and this individual quickly came down for a bath and a drink. Slowly , the elephant accepted our presence and allowed us for a bit closer approach. The light was not ideal and hence decided to go for a BW conversion.
DPP 4.8, PSCC2018, BW conversion, levels, contrast, shadows , sharpening, cropped from all sides slightly.
Hi Haseeb, a nice attempt here but the central placement & extreme contrast is not particularly working IMO. The water drops and those pebbles add a nice touch though. Keep experimenting. TFS.
Hi Haseeb - Is the elephant underexposed in the RAW or did you do that in post. I feel that you need some more of the detail and shapes of the elephant, particularly in the head and trunk area, to come through the splash. I do like the rocky habitat but agree about the contrast and central placement. If the elephant isn't underexposed then shoot me the RAW and I'll have a play if you want.
Haseeb sent me the RAW file and I tried my hand at a conversion which I sent to Haseeb along with my observations. Haseeb asked me to post both and I appreciate the fact that he is open to the criticism and wanting others to learn too. This was the substance to of my email to Haseeb:
I converted it in ACR and then played a little more with some curves in PS. Honestly though if it were mine I probably would have binned it. The image overall is underexposed. The ss was too high and you had negative exp comp. Also it seems that the AF focused on the splash in front of the ele and not on the ele so that the ele is not as sharp as I would like. The lack of contrast on the ele would also make it difficult for the AF to focus on it. With the placement in frame it is difficult to move the ele out of the center.