Canon 60D, Tamron 70-300 at 70 mm, f4, ISO 1600, 1/30 sec.
I traveled to Rwanda in 2011 and went on 3 mountain gorilla trips. The second trip was to the Hirwa group, where a female had twins of 2 months old. At first she was lying on her belly letting the twins play, later she rolled on her back showing how much she loved those twins and then she sat up and started to suckle the twins. I was an amazin gexperience which I will never forget. I follow the twins on the website of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and they are still doing fine, which is of course great to hear.
Photographing them was a challenge. The bamboo forest was quite dark, you couldn't carry a tripod because the gorillas see that as a stick and makes them nervous and using flash was out of the question for me because of the disturbance it would be to the mother.
Comments
7 commentsVery good, considering the slow shutter speed, high ISO and some movement. Congrats on a difficult capture, well caught!
Impressive image. I like the intimate crop and the results you were able to obtain at ISO 1600 on the 60D.
Outstanding image! This is one of those photos where any slight tech problems do not get in the way of a great photo IMHO! How you caught her eyes is great. This would be a great photo to be used for gorilla conservation issues. Thanks for Sharing.
Man, you sure catch some great expressions in your animal portraits, Betty-Lou! And on top of a great look from momma, the tender, nurturing moment captured makes this a special picture. Really nice one.
Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments. It humbles me to hear these nice remarks on all of my images that I have posted lately. I never expected that.
Betty-Lou, this is obviously an emotionally powerful image! I think much of its strength comes from the great look at her eyes and the symmetry of the pose, including arms and (of course)babies. If this were mine I would spend a little time to make very minor tweaks, such as trying to darken the light background stem coming from the top of her head. If this is a crop, it would be neat if all of the toes were included too. Thanks for posting.
Thanks Lon, I actually hadn't seen this stem myself, but now you mentioned it, it is a little disturbing, so I followed your advice and darkened it a bit. This is the result. This image was shot as it is, so no crop. I cannot include the toes therefor.