Sunset In Paradise

Gazelles, antelopes and the like stick together on the plains. Safety in numbers it is called. The more animals there are, the greater the chance of spotting a predator and of not getting killed. When it gets dark, the dangerous time for the prey animals starts. Here we have two Thomson gazelles, a Grant gazelle, a few zebras and a topi on the lookout, which makes a few other zebras relaxed enough to continue grazing for a while.

We drove up a hill just before sunrise to try and witness something like this. The photo has been made from a vehicle, using a telephoto lens from a bean bag.

Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya.

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ingridvekemansphotography

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Ingrid: this is truly a beautiful photo with great light, subject and composition. I could go on and on, but if it were mine it would be printed large and prominently hung. Congrats!!! Richard

This is the shot we all want to get when we go to Africa. This is so beautiful Ingrid. The setting or rising sun, perfect amount of cloud cover to provide the glowing orange atmosphere, the perfectly shaped trees on the savanna, and a pleasing variety of back-lit animals. Just perfection. I wouldn’t change a thing about this. WOW!

Great silhouette and stunning set up, I love every thing about it. This is the kind of image which draws the viwer in.
The two trees hold the image very nicely !
Cheers!

Absolutely stunning - the kind that could easily go a wall. That said I wonder how it would look taking the top 15-20% off ? Perhaps also 5% on the left and on the right - even cropping to exclude the right most animal ? For some reason I can’t download this to try these
Absolutely lovely Ingrid! Thanks for sharing

Thanks, Richard, have already done that :grin:

@David_Haynes and @JRajput , thanks so much for your appreciation :blush:

@Karl_Zuzarte, In general I don’t like tight crops and if an image works as it is, I tend to rather not crop it at all. But thanks very much for your suggestion, I do appreciate you taking the time to try and convince my stubborn self :upside_down_face:

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Hello Ingrid
This a beautiful picture. Really like the silhouettes, the animal’s positions and the fact that clouds are “copying” the general shape of the silhouettes.
I have to say that I agrre with @Karl_Zuzarte I would cropna bitnon the top, not to make it tight but just to be more consistent on the general shape of the composition.
Great work, thanks for sharing the picture andbthe great caption.

It’s lovely, Ingrid. I particularly like that you got the gazelles and their upturned heads on the flanks of the herd.

I do think a crop might help too. Vertically, I could see a bit off the top, though I can see why you’d keep it this way… the vertical balance isn’t bad. My main suggestion would be a little off the left. The right seems fine to me, but because you have no animals left of the tree, there seems to be a bit of empty space on that edge which throws things off for me.

Max

Ingrid - A beautiful, peaceful image. Almost feel like I’m there. Can see why some might crop down from the top. But I assume you’ve looked at it that way as well. If cropping hadn’t been mentioned, I wouldn’t have thought of it. Hope I can return to Masai Mara some day.

While I tend to like tighter crops, I say, remain stubborn with this one. I love it as presented.