August 2011 GOTM

Great catch! I think you cropped perfectly, given the gear.

Very nice capture Jenaya. The comp works well for me as your focus is on the antlers so it really isn't necessary to see more of the animals behind the heads. The guy on the left looks like he has the bigger rack and accordingly is higher than the junior one. They must not have fought too much when you snapped the shutter as there is still snow on their antlers. My only nit is the straight line at the bottom. At first I thought it was the image edge but I see some small pieces of snow below it so knew it was in the image. It just looks to straight but I'm sure that's what it was. Perhaps its becasue the image is surrounded by another shade of gray in the larger image. The smaller image doesn't give me that feeling. Regardless, a great shot and a nice additional to your portfolio,

Peter

Well done here Jenaya. This must have been a wonderful experience! Your comp works well given the occasion. Thanks for sharing.

I like the light on the antlers, you have caught the action well. Thanks for sharing.

IMO Jenaya, this one is the best of this series by you. The focus is where you want it to be in an image of fighting bulls, on their heads. Excellent BG separation here, great light and a super low angle!

Nice reaction to the scene that unfolded in front of you to get this wonderful composition. I really like the direct light that shows good details in both of the elk. My only suggestion would be to see if you could brighten up the eye of the elk on the left (maybe a selective levels adjustment). One of the stronger items in this image beside the racks is seeing the eye contact of the elk on the right, so to get both elk with eye contact would be great. Excellent shot, I really like this, well seen and well done.

You handled the opportunity well. The tight comp works very well for the subjects as presented.

Looks great to me too!!! Sweet Photo Jenaya

Ken Archer

Hi Jenaya,

Interesting image - sometimes you get caught with the "wrong" equipment on and have to do some fast thinking to make the most of the situation. I think you did a good job of that here. On the technical side - to me it looks like you had a real tough exposure to make (and did quite a good job on it). Overall the exposure looks quite good already, but in a perfect world I'd likely tone down some of the snow on the antlers a little and perhaps slightly brighten the elk (there's some pretty dark shadows there) - but in both of these cases I'm suggesting minor tweaks only (but sometimes those minor tweaks can make a world of difference!).

On the composition: How was this image captured - horizontally or vertically? Ultimately I'm wondering if there's a little more room on either side - to me if feels a little tight on the sides - I think showing a little more neck might remove a little of the "guillotine" feeling that I get from the shot. The current crop DOES emphasize the tangle of antlers nicely, so going a little wider MIGHT compromise this a little (always trade-offs!!).

Overall I like this a lot - consider the nits above extremely minor - as posted the image is very appealing...

Cheers...

Brad

With subjects as beautifully lit and exposed as these, I for one really don't mind if you only ever post images of Elks from now on ...... well, that is as long as you throw in the odd Lady Owl every now and then too ;^p

Seriously, I really like this image Jenaya; for me the main point of interest here is the entangled antlers, which this capture portrays magnificently. Like Brad though, I'm curious to know how you cropped this, i.e. was the original frame shot in landscape of portrait?

My guess is landscape, although when viewing the image on your monitor you saw the great potential in going portrait on those antlers, at the same time, once the vertical crop was made you felt the subjects were appearing a little too decapitated, so you clicked off the "constrain" feature on the crop and stretched the usually more visually pleasing rectangular proportions outward to the sides.

If this assumption is correct, as risky a thought as this may be, I think this image would look better having even less of the necks showing and retaining the rectangular crop, which would also focus one's attention even more on the primary subjects of interest by eliminating all but the most essential elements. In saying this, I want you to know I've repeatedly held both my hands up in front of my face, palms out, shaving slivers of various widths equally from both sides of the frame before making this suggestion - LOL ;^)

Even though I've yet to learn how to do this with Photoshop myself, another alternative might be to "add canvas" to the upper and lower edges, which from other images I've seen this done on where not much intricate detail was found on the edges (as is the case with this photo), it seems pretty easy enough to do ... as the novice says about the conductor waving his thin little stick at the orchestra ;^p

Very much looking forward to seeing whatever you'll be posting up next Jenaya :^)

Thanks for the comments everybody! I was really concerned about how tight it was on the elk's necks...I'm glad you feel this still works!

Brad, you asked if I took this as a horizontal or a vertical. I actually did take it as a vertical, so there isn't any room on either side of them, this is completely full frame in terms of width, with only excess snow cropped from the bottom of the image. We were pretty close to them and when they stood up to do this I reached to release the tripod collar and switch to horizontal but my frozen hands couldn't pull it off quickly enough, and backing up quickly in over 3ft of snow didn't work either, so I just shot! I will try the suggested tweaks in PhotoShop to improve the exposure more.

Peter, you were wondering about the line below the Elk. It's actually from one of the Elk walking through the snow before they started to fight. My dad and I were surprised by how perfectly straight it was also! I was surprised that the smaller bull even wanted to fight with the big guy, as the bigger bull is even bigger than he looks.

Thanks again!