A male silverback lowland gorilla at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo Regenstein Ape House. This guy, I swear, was posing for the camera.
Taken at 175mm focal length of the VR 80-400mm lens with a circular polarizer to reduce glare of the glass in between me and the ape who is actually quite a distance from me. Post processing included IsoXPro, increased contrast, cloning of some background elements, contrast masking, gaussian blur of background, contrast and saturation again, cropping, resize, desaturation and unsharp mask.
Statistics
Place: 45 out of 69 Avg (all users): 6.4713 Avg (commenters): 7.1774 Avg (participants): 5.8983 Avg (non-participants): 6.5702 Views since voting: 1973 Views during voting: 813 Votes: 401 Comments: 66 Favorites: 4 (view)
Thanks to all who voted and especially to those who commented. This was a difficult shot, in low light of the gorilla enclosure, but I just had to submit it to show the expression. Outtakes in my portfolio for those interested. Thanks again.
Nice photo. He or she looks a little broke. Makes me feel that it is longing to be in the wild and free. Just a little over process looking. Good luck! 7
i like the emotion that you caught here...i know gorillas don't express themselves the same way we do, but it's still quite captivating. the crop is nice, the DOF is good. the lighting seems really flat though; more contrast would definitely help, particularly on the lower end of the tonal range (i.e., the blacks need to be blacker i think). nice submission.
I am so sad that i am overexposed and over sharpened! just kidding. wow you give some human qualities to an otherwise void and soulless looking face. The eyes kind of look presidential, though... lol!
Perhaps just a tad oversharpened, and you might try deepening your darker tones, but still a wonderful capture. The expression and moment are engaging, and your use of light is very effective.
Nice facial shot of a gorilla but the hair looks oversharpened. Contrast feels a bit weak, as well. Also, the background has a thick white line that leads directly into the side of the gorilla's head. 5
i can relate to that expression...i imagine that is what i am going to be looking like after voting three challenges this week. good use of bw, but find whatever is coming out of his ear on the left very distracting.
Monkeys scare the heck out of me, but I have to say this guy just looks so sweet, you really captured a great expression. I like the use of black and white 9
He looks so intelligent. I like the choice of black and white. The white spots on his lips and chin keep drawing my eyes to them. I think it would have been more effective to remove them. A little less of a crop on the top would be good too. We almost, but not quite, see the tip of his fur on top. To me thats distracting. Still a great shot though.
Great contrast and texture in the gorilla's fur. The catch light in the left eye seems off.
I think a tighter crop from the top would work here (just down to the dimple on the skull). A rule of thumb is to either include all of something or crop a fair bit so it doesn't look like a miss. This works for most subjects, not just portraits. 7
Wow - what a study in textures. The exposure is perfect - and the meter was probably not your friend. The intense look on the face is awesome. The horizontal white line on the left side detracts just a bit.
You did a really nice job with this shot of capturing such a great facial expression. The focus or maybe processing around the left ear area seems a bit off, but that's a pretty minor point. This is a really excellent photo.
Detail here seems a little fuzzy, like it's a sharpened version of a slightly out-of-focus shot. The captured moment and expression are great, however.
great details and expression. tonal range could be more extensive - the image does have a gray washed out look to it, but it is a very nice animal portrait.
Beautiful portrait. He looks so sad. I wish I knew what he was thinking too. Because he's so incredibly cute -- whatever he would want -- he would get. I love how close up this is. You can see every detail of his fur, and the wrinkles on his face. 9
Great sad expression, great eye contact. Good details in the fur. Not sure about the crop, especially the top touching the edge, maybe crop it much smaller to focus even more on the expression ?
Oh, he looks so sad :( The poor baby, he's probably thinking, "Won't you get me out of here?" This is a wonderful shot, overall composition is well don, just seems to be lacking definitive black and white points and yes, my monitor is calibrated. A 9
Oh lordy what a photo! This is a great shot, such emotion, so dang human, jeez. I have no suggestions for improvement, really, I think it's excellent all on its own. Thanks!
Great capture, the eyes are extremely expressive here. The composition/crop seems a bit of an afterthought though, the eyes look oversharpened and the dof is too shallow. The white background element on the left of the frame should have been cloned out, it's quite distracting. The overall gamma seems very high, the photo looks a bit washed out. I'd lower the gamma and increase the contrast. 6
Very nice. You dont really get the eyes in this shot. I wonder what an even closer crop that showed only the facial features would look like. I see a very nice picture of a gorilla, but without the eye expression I don't really wander what he is thinking. 8.
To be honest I can't see any reason why you made this picture B&W. It carries no feeling. I would take the contrast to the edge if it had to be b&w. Still I love the sadness on it's face.
I love the shot in general but not the b&w approach
Its hard to say what that expression is in Gorilla language but he looks very sad to me but who knows! Very nice portrait. Its interesting that you chose to do it in B&W. I like it. I would like to see the color version to compare. Nicely focused and the subject is well placed in the frame.
I think this photo shows a lot of expresson, but I feel it needs more contrast through post-processing. At the moment there are a lot of mid greys which make it look a bit flat. The white line in the background is a bit distracting too and could have been cloned out. It looks from the sharpness that you have to crop the photo quite a bit to get this composition which means the image quality isn't too great, which unfortunatly effects the photo quite a bit. 5
There was a picture like this in the Boston Globe this week (though it was color.) In both images, the subject looks bored to death, which is probably exactly how he feels. The fur looks just a bit out of focus, with some highlights that are a bit strong, otherwise, I think this might have been a top entry.
This is a great portrait with good detail and excellent tones. The b/w choice is great because it adds to the character, avoids the color variations and frees the viewer to reflect squarely on the subject and the plight of these creatures. A very moving study.
My favorite "zoo" animal. I have also wondered exactly what your caption asks. His expression is very fitting of the title. I like the mood you capture with black & white. Nice clarity in his face. I gave you a (10)
I can almost feel his fur... very high detail, wonderful. I wish it wasn't cropped so tight at the top, but that's a extremely minor detail considering the quality of the photograph and expression on this chap's face :)
A great expression on the gorilla.. almost sad, but inquistive and sort of .. complacent.. as well. I had originally given this a 7, but after looking at it further, I believe it deserves an 8. I'm just not sure about the B&W here though, as it seems to have dulled the eyes.
Very emotive animal portrait. I particularly like the low contrast and the gradual gradations of tone from darker at the bottom, to lighter at the top. Great detail in the gorilla's coat and the connection with the eyes are captivating. It's almost as if this animal sat in a studio for you and posed. Only criticism would be the close crop at the top of the head but other than that, very well done. 9
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