Outlaws

Gallery: WildlifePosted January 23, 2010191 views6 comments

I am not sure about this image, but coyotes have always intrigued me. I watched these two work through a prairie dog town last week. As they worked throught the town they stopped to "mark" each of the prairie dog burrows they came across. I was hoping to get some hunting shots, but as they got closer, I noticed that one was bleeding from an old injury and the other was missing most of his fur. For some reason their actions combined with their physical condition reminded me of a couple of down on their luck outlaws.

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on January 23, 2010 at 8:41 PM

Interesting behavior shot. The back coyote looks like it could have mange. For me, the contrast is alittle to low.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Ant on January 25, 2010 at 2:34 AM

The "outlaws" visualisation you mention works very well... It is, IMO, an intriguing image, sort of casual and not "grand", real-life scene... I like it quite a lot (yes, the constrast is low, but I am not sure whether increasing it would destroy the feeling you created). Oh well, and it definitely reminds me of the old "Missouri" movie...

Registered on April 13, 2009, 27 Posts, 474 Comments

Comment posted by Stan Rose on January 25, 2010 at 11:19 AM

An interesting shot for sure. I especially like the monochrome look--might even make a good conversion. The contrast looks fine to me, but id like the coyotes (at least front one) to be a bit sharper.

Registered on September 15, 2005, 836 Posts, 17099 Comments

Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on January 25, 2010 at 1:09 PM

These coyotes sure do blend in very well with the environment Mike and I like that natural neutral color palette The pose of the second one is a strong one, but the front one was not as co-operative here. If only its face would have faced the viewer's direction this would be a very different image IMO. I could be wrong, but it looks to me as if that stump left of the coyotes is an old fence post with barbed wire?

Registered on February 24, 2006, 504 Posts, 7203 Comments

Comment posted by Dan Harbour on January 25, 2010 at 8:50 PM

I like the simple color palette which to me conveys the sense of their camoflage. I like the crop, and I think you captured your theme of two rough wiley outlaws.

Registered on January 4, 2008, 113 Posts, 2416 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on January 26, 2010 at 3:50 PM

Hi Mike,

You can pretty much "ditto me" on what Vincent said - particularly the part about the appealing colour palette. One further comment - to me the issue with this shot isn't so much the contrast, but the separation of the coyotes from the background. While a bump in contrast MAY help with this (given that the coyotes are a little darker than the surroundings), I think the preferred route to go would have been throwing the background more out of focus. However, without knowing your techs (lens used, aperture), it's quite hard to judge if this would have been possible (and I am guessing by the appearance of this shot that the lens used to shoot it wasn't too long).

Cheers...thanks for sharing this...

Brad

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments