The local zoo asked me to take photos of their newborn Golden Lion Tamarins. These guys are cute, and among the rarest animals in the world (probably less than 1,500 left in the wild). Hard to shoot, though... they move fast, and I was shooting through a fence indoors at ISO1600. I waited about an hour for this shot.
Processing: You know how sometimes you can coax a good image out of a rather mundane capture? Well, I did a LOT of coaxing on this one. Convert from RAW at different settings for more dynamic range, Levels, Curves, Channel Mixer for saturation, play around with yellow & red channels to tweak the fur color, dodge & burn (especially the mom's face), Noise Ninja, deepen and blur the background slightly, spot blur to reduce noise, burn shadows around faces for contrast, and several rounds of USM.
Woohoo! It's always special to win one without my creativity crutch. Thanks for the votes and comments! :-) I'll post the ORIGINAL so you can see what a little Photoshop mojo can do.
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 383 Avg (all users): 7.3706 Avg (commenters): 8.7368 Avg (participants): 7.2658 Avg (non-participants): 7.5000 Views since voting: 16721 Views during voting: 295 Votes: 143 Comments: 78 Favorites: 39 (view)
Shannon: you are becoming by far the most consistent super member of this site. Amazing capture and lucky you to present these rare duo. Loud Kudos from Jersey City on your BLUE!
Wow, what a truly amazing picture.Truly inspiring how you made such an ordinary photo into one of such clarity and outstanding punchy colours. The title is heart-warming.Fenominal , really deserved the blue ribbon. : - ) My favourite!
Wow! Amazing shot! Wonderful capture, great detail and lighting. Congrats on your ribbon! I live about five minutes from the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport. I'll have to go one weekend to see these guys!
Yo man, you gotta stop winning these ribbons, sooner or later a mob of jealous photographers will rise up, storm your house, and screw around in your medicine cabinet :P
This is certainly a deserving winner. I also believe it's a great example of how post processing should be used, and what it can do effectively. Great work :)
While I would have preferred you save this shot for next week :-) I must offer my congrats as it is beautiful. Those colors are stunning. Great work as always!
What a great capture of such wonderfully, unusual creatures. The baby is adorable, and the way the mother is looking into your eyes leaves one speechless ... they are so Dr. Suess-looking, and the fact they are extremely rare adds to the specialness of this image.
Congratulations. What an honor on all levels. Your photograph is stunning!
I didn't vote, so maybe I have no right to speak, but the technical quality of this one isn't very good IMO... lots of noise, bad focus. Things that PS can't always save ;)
Congrats on the blue. I'm glad it ribboned just to find out what kind of animals these were. Amazing stuff. I'd love to see your before & after shots (to show the post processing involved), it sounds amazing.
A really nice sharp image. I love the eyes. It would be an awesome photo with just the adult. The baby just adds to the 'wow' of this pic. Bonus for the border which IMHO works very well.
This has to be the best photo in the challenge - if this does not ribbon I will be hugely disappointed. Fantastic lighting, great detail and such wonderful expression captured on both of their faces. Had to come back and bump this up.
The lighting is great... the focus is too.. I don't like the border... this shot does not need it!... a 9 Came back to take another look and upped this one to a 10.. I just love this photo
Brave New World
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