Took this picture while on vacation in Florida at "Monkey Jungle". (Their motto appeared to be "A place where humans are caged and monkeys run free!".) I was in a small tour group and we were led to this gorilla's area. I think this gorilla's name was King, although I'm not completely sure. Anyway, at approximately 20 feet away from me, King was reacting to the tour guide's voice while I shot him with my camera. At one point I noticed him looking straight at me (or at someone/something close to me) so I quickly took a few pictures.
Upon looking at the pictures on the computer, I was disappointed that most of them were blurry or not very good. However, this one was fortunately salvageable and I was delighted with King's humorous expression. I know this picture will not perform too well in terms of ranking here, but at least I hope some of you primate afficionados will enjoy this picture. :-)
Aaand here's some technical stuff for anyone who's interested...
Date/Time: 2005.11.22 11:56:31
Focal length: 300mm
Flash: No
Exposure program: Shutter Priority
White Balance: Auto
Exposure Value (EV): 0
Tripod: No
Distance from camera to subject: ~20 feet
Post-processing (used a couple layers):
Curves, Gaussian Blur, Brightness/Contrast, Dodging & Burning, Resize, Unsharp Mask, Save for Web.
* * * After Voting * * *
I knew this picture wouldn't do too well and I agree with the commenters who said the picture is too soft/pixellated. Considering the amount of entries in this challenge, I'm at least happy that Grumpy ain't at the last place and moreso that he made some people smile. ;-) Thanks to those who voted, especially to those who generously took their time to comment on this picture! Thank you very much again.
Statistics
Place: 720 out of 833 Avg (all users): 4.8838 Avg (commenters): 5.8824 Avg (participants): 4.7913 Avg (non-participants): 5.3714 Views since voting: 1167 Views during voting: 567 Votes: 439 Comments: 19 Favorites: 0
great expression, good composition, would be better if the face was fully in focus (which may be quite hard, taking into account a typical monkey's patience) and the background less distracting/more contrasting
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