backlight and mule deer

This is impressive! Great camera work to keep detail and color in the deer with this lighting. If anything maybe a bit of crop off the top, to keep attention on the deer. Thanks for sharing.

I really like this composition. Beautiful arrangement of the layers of background color. There is something off regarding the light in the foreground and on the deer. Almost looks like some kind of flare that must be the light intrusion you mention. Hard to pinpoint, but overall a very nice image.

He gave you a nice pose, Lon. I certainly like the rim lighting on the buck and the lighting on the grasses is pretty good, too. It helps my eyes stay in the part of the photo. I like how the orange veg, kind of snakes down the hillside and dumps you right at the deer.

Hello Lon

Well, good to see it resurrected and lookin Fine!

Gotta love the very fine rim lighting!

The body of the deer was in shadow and can see where you worked on that area to give some colour and texture.

Cheers

Bill

Hi Lon,

I find this one very, very interesting. For awhile I was thinking that about the top 10% should be cropped off, but when I look at it again (and again) I think I'd leave it just as is. Overall really interesting use of lighting and colour with strong composition. I'm half wondering if the grassy zone immediately behind the buck (which more or less forms a triangle) could use just a tad more contrast? To my eye that section almost has that "too much shadow retrieval" look to it and I think a tad more contrast there would not only help the buck pop out, but it would look a bit more realistic? Just a thought...

Cheers...

Brad

I really like the light in this shot and also the nice buck. The shot looks really nice as is but IMO it would look even better without the top part of the shot. I would crop out most of the top half to more strongly emphasize the rim lit deer and the very cool look of the light hitting the tops of the grass stems. I might slightly darken the foreground also. Like I said looks really nice as is and others may disagree with my assessment. Anyway you crop it looks sweet.

Lon, this is a nice setting for the deer, the colors are indeed a highlight. It's to bad about the grasses sticking up in front of the face, but we can't always have it all now can we.

I think you could add a vignette (or do some selective dodging and burning) to the bottom of the image to bring more attention to the buck, as is it looks like there was some flaring down there.