Went back to the zoo on Monday and shot a bunch of images of the tigers (my usual muse) and then went to check out the lions. This lion was sitting with his face just a couple of feet from the cage. I shot a bunch of images at different positions not really thinking I had anything good because of the bars. Once home and looking at the shots this one kind of stood out. I tried a couple different edits mainly dealing with the bars - making them cleaner, smaller, softer - and they all looked like I had drawn them on. So I started over again and didnt touch them at all outside of cloning out the one bar in the middle. I sent in my edit and original to SC to see if I had removed too much but considering that the image is still of a lion behind bars they agreed that it was legal - as long as I didnt do more bar removal.
I know many people dont much care for zoo shots - something about trying to make a caged animal look wild or something (I dont really get it myself). But this image is meant to have the feel of imprisonment and almost despair. Dont get me wrong - I love our zoo and the quality of the habitats - but this is meant to be more of an emotional image rather than just a cool image of a big cat. I think the title is key to top it all off and finish the story - the King of cats being removed from power and placed in a prison. I guess it is very possible that most of my comments will be of those horendous blurry things going down the image. I plan on submitting the original immediately to get validation. Here is the original to see where I started from.
PP - Raw conversion stuff - exposure, shadows, highlights, sharpen, noise. PS stuff - alot of dodging and burning, cloning of center bar, levels, stauration adjustments to convert and tweak in B&W, curves, several USM, NI, crop, border, save for web and one more USM.
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I'm frankly surprised at the number of commenters that thought the bars were "distracting" (for some reason a universal word for not really getting a particular element). They seem to have completely missed the point. This is a great photo, wonderfully processed, and very effective.
You did a fantastic job, and accomplished your purpose for this amazing photo so well! The animal is so gorgeous, but the feel of imprisonment is very strong and it did make me sad to look at it! Except for the sad part, I just love this!
Very nice crisp shot of the lions face, especially the whiskers! I know there was nothing you could do but it is unfortunate the bars are there. Still the title makes that work as well. I like the way you have cropped it so that it is really close up of his face.
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