Vigilant Cheetah

Details and colours look great !

You had a difficult situation in terms of composition. I wish i could see more to the right but cant comment without knowing what was there. The thing that i really miss is seeing the other pupil.

Such an interesting composition, David. The "floating" head dominates the image; everything else is bg. The face has a very serious look to it with the eyes having just enough color to indicate life. I don't miss the second pupil. In addition to showing beautiful detail and color, I find the shot quite haunting and unusual.

Everything looks good to me David, exposure, sharpness, dof... though her head does sort of "float", which I really didn't think about until I read Steve's comment. That might also be due to the difference in angle from her head to her body. It is her no nonsense look that I noticed first and that leaves the strongest impression for me.

This image has the same sort of effect on me that some of those symmetrical-shaped silhouette drawings or cutouts have that create the optical illusion of there being two completely different images to behold and leaving me struggling to return to the initial impression as I saw it.

The impression I can't seem to shake right now is seeing this as a pair of Cheetahs with the body of the one in front actually lying completely to the left and out of the frame, making it appear that this Cheetah is poking it's head out from behind the grassy area to see what's going on.

Perhaps this wasn't your intention when you framed this shot David, and maybe it's not really the way you'd want most to see it, but honestly for me, this optical illusion actually makes this image a whole lot more compelling, interesting, and likely to have me coming back to look at it again and again than if I hadn't noticed it at all ;^)

I only hope I'm saying this in a way that you can appreciate how much I genuinely like this image, even if it's for reasons somewhat different to the reasons this image holds appeal for you :^)

Great look at the face. Nice color and detail, too, although I would have like the inclusion of the second pupil, as well. I understand what others are saying about difficulty in matching head to the body mass and feel it was just an unfortunate circumstance beyond your control with this perspective/pose.