Red Deer stag

Gallery: WildlifePosted March 10, 201063 views7 comments

I was in a woodland on the Alvie estate in the Scottish Highlands during the very cold winter weather. There was a number of red deer around this was was hiding in the undergrowth.I cropped it tight for effect

Canon 50D, Canon 300mm f2.8 lens, f4, 1/180sec, ISO 400

Comments

7 comments

Comment posted by Robert Bunch on March 10, 2010 at 10:50 AM

I like the idea of the tight crop and the facial closeup with the one piece of grass looped around the antler but the OOF foreground does not do anything for me. I would much prefer to see a shot of the whole face without the obstruction of the OOF area. That is just my personal opinion and probably others will disagree.

Registered on May 18, 2004, 124 Posts, 2503 Comments

Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on March 10, 2010 at 12:59 PM

I love these type of shots Ron! To me they are often so much more interesting than 'standard' full portait shots. The V-shape of the antlers justify the center comp in this case and make for a nice symmetrical image. The grass hanging in the one antler adds an element of interest that puts this over the top for me. Great work!

Btw: how much did you crop, the larger version still shows plenty detail?

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

Comment posted by Daniel & Loana on March 10, 2010 at 3:04 PM

Ron, I like this very much. Great effect!

D&L

Registered on October 7, 2008, 166 Posts, 3044 Comments

Comment posted by Ron McCombe on March 10, 2010 at 6:01 PM

Hey Vincent
This si about 70% of the original, I was quite close to the deer

Ron

Registered on November 16, 2009, 190 Posts, 207 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on March 10, 2010 at 9:41 PM

I like the compositional element of both antler bottoms angling towards the corners and I like the really nice reflective eyes. I wish you had just a little more of the nose...Then I think that neat bit of hanging grass would become the accent.

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments

Comment posted by Alessandra & Rocco on March 11, 2010 at 8:28 AM

Very impressive, I lke the symetry in this pic

Registered on March 3, 2007, 122 Posts, 778 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on March 11, 2010 at 9:53 AM

Hi Ron,

An interesting idea - and one where folks will definitely have an opinion! Here's mine: while I tend to like shots where only selective portions of a subject is in focus and out-of-focus areas imply "hiding" (one of Jim Brandenberg's wolf shots being one of the more famous examples), usually I like to see LESS in focus than in your shot. So here I wish there were other natural objects obscuring more of the red deer and we had only a sharp eye (or eye and ear) to work with visually. But, as the comments above show, many others really like what you've done here, so it's obviously a success!

Cheers...thanks for sharing this...

Brad

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