Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction
Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
How does it feel when a Gray Wolf stares right at you, even though you are in a hide?
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
I took this image in June in Finland, where we spent the night in a well-appointed hide to photograph Gray Wolves and Brown Bears.
Technical Details
Sony a1 with Sony 200-600mm lens at 312mm, f/6.3 at 1/400th, ISO 4000. Tripod mounted.
Charles: I’m sure that I would have been glad to have been in a hide while hoping that the wolf wasn’t particularly hungry. 
The eyes are compelling and your composition is a good example of not having to capture the entire subject. My only suggestion would be to reduce the blue cast on the wolf’s left. The blue is very noticeable in the wolf’s eye.
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Hi Charles, it would make me feel as though I’m no longer at the top of the food chain and I’m sure, even though in a blind, that he has my scent anyway. My immediate response is it’s a very compelling image, well captured. Agree with @Richard_Sandor about the blue cast; appears that side may have been in a little shadow.
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Thanks for the comments. The blue is definitely due to shadow as it was late evening when I took this image. It is not really noticeable in the larger version, but in this rather extreme crop it does stand out.
Serious stare with an edge that definitely caught my attention. But for me, I didn’t know that it was a wolf and found the not knowing a bit distracting. I wonder if a wider crop, showing more of the wolf would allow more orientation and make it even more intimidating? Agree with the comments about the blue in the left eye.
