A Parting Gift!

Sorry, meant to add a larger version but clicked the wrong button by mistake ;^.

Ashley, have a great trip!

Great shot of this shy animal. Lots of details in skin and tusks.
Personally I believe that the second elephant makes the image a little busy / confusing.
But having said that, wish I was there with you.
Enjoy the ancient continent Africa.

Jef

Hi Ashley,

Have a good trip - I hope you're presented with lots of quality photo ops. I look forward to seeing what you come back with. And remember, don't feed the wildlife, especially with your own body parts...

Interesting shot...I'm not sure the cropping/framing works too well for me - when such a small portion of an animal is cut-off (here I'm referring to the top of the head and the lower jaw) to me it looks like accidental clipping. I also found the blurred trunk and leaves a little distracting. Interestingly, I hardly noticed the presence of the 2nd elephant until reading Jeffry's comments - it will be interesting how others react to it (to me it wasn't much of a distraction at all). Took me a while to notice that the foreground elephant was just about to eat the background elephant's eye!

Cheers...have a great trip...

Brad

I like it! The extra eye adds some mystery to the image, well exposed. Have fun in Africa.

Ashley, the first thing I though when I saw the thumbnail was: too tight! Now that I see this is 30% of full frame I must admit I am a bit puzzled as to why you cropped this as is. Apart from the tightness I do like the image a lot! The second eye/elephant adds another dimension to this scene.

Have a great trip and don't forget to take look behind you as well when you are on foot in the African bush.

Interesting framing here Ashley. I quite like the visible '3rd eye' behind the open mouth of the front elephant. To me the close crop would work a tad better if there were no pieces of ear visible...having them makes me want the whole ear

Never seen this species before on forums.

Enjoy your trip and do come back safely with stacks of great images...

Great eye contact. Like the fact you can see the eye on the other elephant as well.

Thanks for your thoughts, comments, and well wishes for my trip ahead Barbara, Jef, Brad, John, Vincent, Morkel, and Dan :^)

Brad, Vincent, and Morkel: The full frame does indeed show much more of the ear, however, something like 5% of the end was unfortunately sliced off (by my framing of the shot) and leaving it this way didn't sit well with me, so I went for a tighter crop and, with a preference for maintaining the ratio, I chose to leave a little of the lobe in the frame rather than lose dome of the bottom lip or cut into the curling trunk.

Having read your observations though, I'm inclined to agree that omitting all the ear is better than leaving that lobe in, and I'll post here the result of that for you to see.

Brad: The blurred trunk and leaves are also something of a distraction to me. Looking at my settings, I can't imagine why I'd chosen to go f/11 on this particular shot. All the same, what I like most about this picture is the framing of the eye between the mouth and tusk and the way that when I look at it my peripheral vision automatically takes in the eye of the Elephant in the foreground, giving the image a sort of surreal look to it; perhaps the closest I've ever come to creating a Picasso - LOL ;^p

Thanks again one and all, and looking forward to seeing more of your own work and sharing more of mine in the not too distant future, all the best :^)

Cool! Novel image with that "extra" eye, I like it