Green and Gold

It looks like a mirror image. Spectacular.

unusual for Africa bright green grass, beautiful animals and already in tandem, nice work!

Morkel, love the similar hunting poses as they move through the new grass. I also like the way the foremost is in focus and the back one is more oof. However, to me the colors as seen on my monitor seem slightly off for some odd reason. Did you desaturate a bit to reduce that garish appearance bright green grass can sometimes take on? I notice the issue particularly in the oof foreground. Other than that an absolutely awesome photo, just needs some color tweaking - I think.

Morkel,
I agree with Gary on this. Given the recent rains I would expect the grass to be far greener, whilst the Cheetah look OK the grass looks totally off (sorry about that )

Thanks guys. Have to disagree with you. The greens are as shot, and these particular grasses have whitish seed pods on top, which gives it that colour. This was taken last year.

Morkel,

Thanks for responding, having being criticised in the past (elsewhere) for overly green grass, I find your response bewildering, mainly as I have never seen these colours in Kgalagadi, must be the wrong time of year

Gary - please do expand on what looks "off" on the grass?

Ken, what's to be bewildered about?
This was taken last year, not after the 'recent rains'.

You yourself stated these aren't 'green enough' for you, so bringing up issues raised in past images about oversaturated greens is a red herring.

The grass that sprouts in the Kalahari is very much like the grass that sprouts on the highveld where I live. See the comment about the seeds above. I have an entire 2-week's trip worth of images from this time that all show the grass like this. The light also plays a part. It was partially overcast here with very muted dappled light coming through. You can see some of it hitting the cheetahs and the section of grass behind them...the foreground grass is in the shade and has a cooler tone to it. Looking now, I realise I could perhaps warm that section up...

There are actually some reeds in view in the frame as well. Those would be the darker greens you see in front of the in-focus cheetah.

As an aside, I normally critique about green casts showing up on animals photographed in green surrounds because of the way the camera sensor picks up the green reflected light, but since my cheetahs are not suffering from that, it's also a non-issue.

Any of you are welcome to do a repost with what you perceive should be the correct grass colour...

Being a desert and mountain guy I don't know about African grasses, but in this image I like how the grass color contributes to a soft almost dream-like quality surrounding the cheetahs.

Hi Morkel, if I were to rework you photo it would likey be considerably different in chroma and perhaps tone and ultimately just a construct of my imagination of what the scene should look like. I also think the photo might work well as a black and white. Part of it may be that first and foremost I tend to react to the photo as to whether or not the colors are attractive or beautiful to me, this may not be in line with whether or not they are accurate. You get the final say on whether the colors are as they should be, your photo. I just have some difficulty relating to the slightly cool and very pale tones in the lights of the image. I find myself wanting to warm up the image, reduce the blue and increase the yellow and as I heartily admit it may not level with your perception of the scene as it presented itself. Perhaps if I were to actually visit this place and experience the light and habitat I might see things differently, literally.
(Then again, I haven't been seeing colors the same since "the car accident".... ) ----just kidding.

Thanks for clarifying, Gary.

Like I said above, I do notice the "cool tones" especially in the FG now, and might warm the lights up a bit if I were to do a rework of this one. With the thin cloud cover the light was changing all the time here, coming and going and here it was as if overcast but with a hint of warmth, but not evenly everywhere across the scene.


The B&W sounds like a good idea...worth experimenting when I have some time again.

LOL @ your accident comment

Morkel,
I derived the basis for my comment from "This was taken just after a good rainy season", which in my experience usually produces vibrant greens, but perhaps not in the Kgalagadi

You should see Etosha in the rainy season

Nicely done Morkel, I also like how the focus is on the cheetah in the foreground while the one in the background is a bit OOF. It makes the second one look almost like an apparition in the long, green grass. I also like how you composed this image with only the two cheetah walking through a sea of grass with no horizon line or sky. Since we can only travel to your part of the world in June-July (summer vacation in Florida), I can't comment on the color...the grass is always a wonderful golden brown when we visit.

Love the picture and hope to get to Kgalagadi someday....cheers!