High Key Bear

I think this is an awesome image of a bear! It has a lot of energy & the lighting contributes a lot. The expression & the grass hanging out of his mouth is great!

I like this capture very much too Dottie, "High Key" perhaps, "High Impact" definitely! Wishing you a wonderful year ahead :^)

Hi Dottie,

Definitely some impact with this shot! The dead-on stare is intense and eye-catching. I suspect some might argue that a vertical capture may have been a better choice (and that in doing so you could have "saved" the lower legs), I'm fine with the tight horizontal crop here.

On the high-key approach: Hmmm...always hard to say if it's the "right" approach without seeing other options. I have to admit that some of what appear to be "blown" highlights here distracted me a little and think those highlights MIGHT be recoverable with a different processing approach (but I do NOT know this for a fact). I'm tending to think my personal preference would be in selectively pulling back the exposure on this shot and thus go with more colour (less bleached out), But that's just me!

Cheers...thanks for sharing this eye-catcher!

Brad

Hey Dottie,
I applaud your different take on this but like Brad, I may have preferred a vert to keep the legs. That being said.....it does grab your attention......so did you try even going more high key with the processing? Could be interesting and thanks for sharing the idea with all of us!

Cool image Dottie! Not really high-key IMO though, but the exposure works for me as is. I too would have preferred a vertical, or alternatively experiment with a tighter crop.

I was shooting with my 500mm lens at 25 meters, and did not capture the bear's legs and paws in the frame. I slightly cropped the image to remove the negative space to the left of the bear. I agree a portrait view would have been better, but that was not to be. Thanks for looking and commenting.

I really like how this emphasizes his massive bulk. Vertical format would have been a good choice, too.