The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This photo was taken very early in the morning a few seconds after the sisters had awakened. The sisters wear tracking collars as they abide on Tswalu reserve which is the largest private reserve in S Africa totaling 135,000 hectares. Their 4AM position was noted by a satellite pass. The guide, tracker and I left at 5AM to try and locate them. The guide and tracker searched on foot in near darkness, found them and came back for me.
We approached the pair very quietly on foot and found them awake but curled up under a thorny tree. Initially, it was too dark to take photos and the cats were obscured by grasses as well. While the cats were aware of our presence, they were non-plussed by it.
After a short bit of time and as the light improved, Itook this photo kneeling on the ground as they arose and looked at us. Shortly thereafter, they turned around, stretched a bit and immediately headed off on a hunt.
Specific Feedback
What do you think of the framing of the image and would you have removed the branch crossing the rear cat?
Technical Details
Hand held at 1/60, f/11, ISO 25,600 at 101 mm. Denoise done in LrC.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Nice! I like the composition and wouldn’t change it. Maybe play with the shadows a bit to bring attention to the cheetah on the left? The stick doesn’t bother me at all. Nice reward for the effort!!!
Great setting, actually quite unusual, leading to a wonderful frame !
I may apply a horizontal gradient from left to right, bringing the frame from dark to light.
PS. One question, why did you use f 11, when you needed more of shutter speed?
Terrific image. The branch does not bother me at all and perhaps adds a bit. The only thing I might do is tighten the crop a bit off the left and removing the brown patches at the bottom.
Christine, Glenys, Jagdeep and Lucky: many thanks to all for your comments and suggestions. Please feel free to post your modifications as I would enjoy seeing them.
Jagdeep: the cats were quite still for a moment when looking at us (we were only 3 meters from them). I upped the f stop to get more depth of field to have both cats sharp.
What a great moment for you!
At the risk of sounding jealous, I wish I could find myself faced with the opportunity to get a few shots of animals like this in the wild, but alas, its not a likely scenario for me so I’ll just be happy living vicariously through photographers like you and a few others here on NPN
I hope it’s OK that I went as far as I did with an illustrated edit suggestion on your wonderful image!
I can’t quite figure it out but something seems out of balance with the natural lighting between the two sisters, it’s probably just the fact that the cheetah on the right was out from under the canopy cover just enough to catch that light.
I really like the story of the cheetah sisters sleeping under the limbs, and this image tells that story very well.
The amount of stuff to the right and under the cheetahs seemed to detract from that story just a bit so I cropped a bit from the right and from the bottom while maintaining the same aspect ratio of 2:3.
I played around with gradient exposures in PS, as well as some of the colors using selective color.
I lowered the saturation a bit in the dirt in the foreground area.
I also increased the exposure just a little in the eyes of the sister on the left.
I think the twig or branch downward across the face of the sister on the left is fine, it doesn’t seem to be a distraction in my opinion.
