Yes, it's a zoo shot. So sue me. I really enjoy wildlife photography, but the only animals I could find in the coldest week of the year were some rather ordinary birds, and even they were wearing heating bills. ;-)
I still had to get tricky though...
For one thing, I've never seen the lynx active at this zoo and the enclosure is downright hostile to photography. This is an old zoo and the lynx area, while a nice habitat inside, has heavy iron bars all around it. To blur away the foreground bars, you need a long lens and wide aperture, and you have to be close to the bars with some distance between them and the animal on the other side. I had to lean way over the rail in an effort to get as close as possible to the bars. Normally, the animals are used to people and won't make eye contact, but this one was probably fascinated at the frostbitten lunatic stretched out over the rail making weird small mammal noises.
To further complicate matters, I had to zoom all the way in to maximize blur (anything less made the bars more obvious). At the equivalent of 640mm, I was actually too close, and I had to frame whatever I could within the camera. Thus, the shot was composed exactly as you see it- no cropping or rotating. I would have loved to have the ear tufts, but I chose to hold the chin instead and didn't get a second chance.
Now for the trick: no matter what I did, I still couldn't eliminate the bars completely, so I positioned myself where a bar would fall right between his eyes. What looks like a darker area of fur running from the top of his head down to the chin is actually a blurry bar (there's another one visible in the background). Pretty sneaky, no?
Processing: Convert from RAW, Levels, Curves, Channel Mixer for saturation, desaturate the blue, a little Photo Filter for warmer tones, assorted light dodge & burn (mostly the eyes and forehead), Noise Ninja on the background, sharpen and saturate the eyes, and two rounds of USM.
Statistics
Place: 10 out of 218 Avg (all users): 7.0685 Avg (commenters): 8.3333 Avg (participants): 6.7767 Avg (non-participants): 7.2759 Views since voting: 4944 Views during voting: 519 Votes: 248 Comments: 64 Favorites: 7 (view)
Congrats on Top Ten Shannon. Hey did you hear about all the hubub about zoo vs. natural environment? :P
If I had voted, I think I would have voted you down for the bar on the right, not for being in the zoo, but because it is a little distracting. Congrats again.
"Ha. Look at me! I'm on the Site Council, I can make up rules as I go along! Nanananana!!!"
The challenge description is not a rule. Your own "At the Beach" entry was all water, when the challenge description clearly defined beach as the strip of land bordering the water. Did you break the rules? No.
You're right. My FIRST ENTRY did not include the actual beach in the photo and I learned from my mistake. The rules said "Go to the beach and photograph what you find..." Because I could see the wakeboarder from the beach, I felt it fit the Challenge description, took my lumps and tried to learn from my experience. Ditto, the B & W Portrait Challenge. I took a picture of a horse (portrait seems to mean "person" to a lot of people) and I'm sure many people downgraded it as a result. That's why it scored a bit lower despite having one more favorite.
You, on the other hand, are on the Site Council, have been her a LONG time and obviously "get it" because you've won quite a few awards.
I guess it's going to be awhile before I "get it" if I decide to keep competing. Just because "see" is a synonym for "find," it doesn't mean you can replace it in the description. Portrait means person. Thinking out of the box is bad. Check all the old challenges if it's a sequel.
Oh yeah. The Description is only a Description, it's not a rule, except when the VOTERS think it's a rule, THEN it's a rule!
And, by your reasoning, if the guy that took the picture of the STUFFED Canadian Lynx had won, he still wins. Be sure and visit the taxidermist for Wildlife IV.
"Ha. Look at me! I'm on the Site Council, I can make up rules as I go along! Nanananana!!!"
The challenge description is not a rule. Your own "At the Beach" entry was all water, when the challenge description clearly defined beach as the strip of land bordering the water. Did you break the rules? No.
Zoo shots were within the rules and fared well in Wildlife I and Wildlife II without complaint. Considering the time and effort I spent in sub-zero wind chills to get this, I would hardly call it poor sportsmanship to poke fun at myself.
"...living in a natural environment." That's a direct copy from the description. A zoo is NOT a natural environment, no matter how you want to rationalize and twist it.
That's not poking fun at yourself, it's a slap in everyone else's face. "Ha. Look at me! I'm on the Site Council, I can make up rules as I go along! Nanananana!!!"
Zoo shots were within the rules and fared well in Wildlife I and Wildlife II without complaint. Considering the time and effort I spent in sub-zero wind chills to get this, I would hardly call it poor sportsmanship to poke fun at myself.
I didnt get to vote on this one, but this is absolutely stunning. And the fact that you cant tell that you did to much edting (the bars) is great. I would love to see the original to get the full affect of your editing process!
Nice effort to shoot through the bars but when I saw this I immediately thought that shadow in the middle was due to a bar and because of that deducted 2 points. I'm glad I was right as I would have hated if this wasn't the case but you probably still hate it anyway.
Regardless it's a great shot with better technicals than mine but lucky for me I didn't vote on mine. :P
Beautiful closeup, love his expression. I admit I wish I could see the tufts on his ears, because they are so distinctive to the lynx. What a telephoto you have! 8.
nice light and quite sharp at 640mm...I like the composition but wonder what it would have looked like as a sq crop without the negative space on the right
Only a slight nit-pick to make on an otherwise wonderful photo: I wish it were not cropped so tightly on the left side. It would be nice to maintain the soft lines of the fur on the side of his face.
Great capture. Beautiful detail and the colors are lovely. It must be a genetic trait of house cats and wild cats alike to look pissed off when they are having their picture taken. Bumping up to 8
wow .. an amazing photograph .... excellent detail .. lots of entries in this challenge are obviously not in their natural environment .... but at 640mm this could be?? ..... =10
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