A male cheetah marks his scent against the base of a camelthorn acacia in the Kalahari desert (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa). I felt the cat got a bit lost in the colour version, hence I went for this conversion. Happy to post the colour version in the comments, as Brad will no doubt ask for it ;)
Techs:
Nikon D800
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f8.0 | 1/1250 SS | ISO-640
Comments
6 commentsAs promised :)
wow! This is beautiful - love the processing here with a soft bit of vingette and I really think the tail curling up behind the tree adds a lot as it mimics the fluid motion of the trees and extends the cat. Color version is nice, but B&W is superior
Yet another stunning image, Morkel, and hand's down the B&W for me (as good as the colour version is). Funny how going "monochrome" can help a subject pop even with the loss of colour, eh? This is a really, really cool frame.
Morkel: the B/W version really puts the empahsis on the cat and is the far superior of the two for my tastes. There's almost a spotlight effect with the surroundings being muted. Congrats, Richard
Great processing choices, Morkel. Angled trees make for dynamic comp and the look-around is arresting. Maybe in perfect world his whole face (both eyes) would be fully shown, but this is excellent.
I love the B&W more than the color version, Morkel. The cheetah really pops here. I love the face expression a lot.