On the final day of my recent Patagonia tour, we found a herd of guanacos near the road in Torres del Paine. I parked myself on my belly before a tall stand of grass and waited for some of the backlit animals to roam into view. It was hit or miss—the camera struggled to acquire focus and it wasn’t exactly easy for me to tell if my subjects were in the focal plane—but the whole point was to use the grass to obscure them, so obviously I wasn’t complaining. A few different compositions turned out okay, and this was the lowest-contrast scene, so it fit this week’s theme well.
Max, the overall gold is nicely inviting with a good touch of mystery. I especially like being able to see the bit of grass hanging from Guanaco on the left’s mouth and the glowing ears.
Fabulous entry Max! Of course the light is wonderful, as is the warm color.
This is most impressive - and your description just made me nearly feel the experience of laying flat on the ground, peering through layers of grass - almost stalking the light and waiting in anticipation of something great; remaining hidden to allow this moment to happen naturally. Awesome! Great job capturing this.
A beautiful low contrast scene Max. Golden light, very soft. And from your description I read that you mostly made the scene yourself.
As @Mark_Seaver mentioned, the head of the Guanaco on the left is the bonus in this image.
@Max_Waugh I really like how you have used the warm tones over the entire image. This is really interesting and very pretty! I also like that you have to hunt for the detail, even though it’s not hard to see. The first guanaco on the left pops right out and is nice and sharp, and then as I view the scene the other two come slowly to the foreground. Your patience was rewarded.
