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Questions to guide your feedback
Emotional and compositional impact.
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Image Description
Brown Bear nursing 2 cubs and you can see the milk “mustache” on the cubs. On first outing to shoot Bears in Alaska at Lake Clark got this shot of nursing. We only saw nursing for a few minutes 2 times out of 4 days of all day shooting ,which is pretty lucky. Late morning with fairly soft lighting.
Technical Details
Sony A-1 with 200-600 mm lens at 600 f8 at 1/2000 sec
Hi Larry. Having just photographed a few of these scenarios in Alaska, I have to commend you on landing good views of the cubs’ faces. They’re normally so engrossed in what they’re doing that it’s rather difficult. Of course, it’s a bummer that the light was a bit harsh, as it casts their faces into shadow, so positioning to the left may have been more ideal (also giving you a chance to get more of Mom’s face), but of course I understand this isn’t always possible.
I do recommend cropping from the right. Mom is shoved up against the left edge, but you have left nearly three times as much room on the right past her feet. Despite the sloping shape of the bears leading down and to the right, I think all that extra space makes it feel unbalanced—especially since the cubs attention and poses are actually pointing leftward. The empty space conflicts with that directionality, in my eyes.
It’s a beautiful moment and cubs look so cute !
I agree with @Max_Waugh that it appears bit unbalanced. You may have some more canvas on the LHS and you may crop a sliver on the RHS.
The cubs may benefit from slight boost in the contrast.
Wonderful behavioral capture Larry. Great to see both faces of the cubs in this intimate moment with mom. I could see adding more space on the left. Very nice image.
