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Hairball
Hairball
riot


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Leftovers (Standard Editing)
Camera: Canon EOS-20D
Lens: Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS
Location: Obviously in the zoo, come on
Date: Nov 30, 2016
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/200
Galleries: Nature, Animals
Date Uploaded: Dec 8, 2016

The tiger is coughing up a furball. Just a quick snapshot and throw-in, nothing very fancy. I didn't shoot this with the contest in mind, but it seemed to fit :)

Most of the work was in the edit; making a winter-time British zoo shot look like the sahara desert takes a little work. First I selectively desaturated the (damp green) background, and then faded in just a little of the original colour for verisimilitude. I then tweaked the curves to give it an injection of golden desertyness and golden-hour sunshine. I let this bleed a little over into the edges of the tiger's fur, too, as a backlight - hoping that's not too blatant. Cloned out distracting stray hairs, dust and dirt on the tiger, and distracting bright spots on the background. Then a global curves adjustment, dipping the gamma down a little for contrast and raising the blues in both deep shadow and bright highlight, with a dip in the midtones. Then dodging and burning to accentuate details on the fur, more selective curves work to bring out the eyes (perhaps again overdone?), resize, and three level selective sharpen.

Statistics
Place: 8 out of 28
Avg (all users): 5.8627
Avg (commenters): 8.0000
Avg (participants): 5.9412
Avg (non-participants): 5.8235
Views since voting: 568
Views during voting: 103
Votes: 51
Comments: 2
Favorites: 0


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AuthorThread
12/16/2016 09:02:55 AM
Greetings from the Critique Club Eugene.

This is a pretty funny shot. It takes a majestic animal and makes him a little more like a house cat. Great timing.

Sounds like you did a lot of editing on this. It doesn't look overworked, so I think you were successful there. I agree that a damp green background might have been a little overpowering, but its hard to tell without seeing it. I personally think you should have darkened out the background a bit more to make the tiger stand out as the subject a little more. As it is, he and his hairball appear a little to muddled by the background and I don't think they demand enough attention. On first inspection (I try to just give it a real quick once-over before really analyzing it.) I missed the hairball altogether. Not until I read the title did I begin to see the hairball, and then the link to the challenge. That may be at the heart why this didn't score a little higher.

Technically the shot is pretty good, but with any portrait, the key is in the eyes. I know you can't really control the lighting there in the zoo, but I wish the tigers eyes stood out more. Here, instead of the eyes, I find myself looking at the nose. I think that's also why the hairball doesn't stand out. For some reason my eye just stays fixated on the details of the nose.

Anyways, I hope that gives you a little insight at least into what I saw, and some food for thought. Cheers.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
12/14/2016 04:54:36 AM
Funny, good catch, top three.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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