I just love that grin. She's also a little orthodontically challenged. ;-)
Cloned out a bunch of floaters in the water, applied a lens blur filter on the rock formation in the foreground, dodged a few facial features, selective tonal contrast filter, and a duplex filter to make it more black & white while leaving a little color left in the shot.
I did a search on hippos and didn't find anything remotely close to a shot like this. I think it's so unique with her leaning into her partner like that. And on top of it, she looks like she is so content and smiling. The "ahhhh" factor alone should push this over a 6 easily...I hope!
[Jun. 2nd, 2009 02:04:26 AM]
As the comments already show, yes, I wish I could have cropped out the rock formation in the foreground. But in order to do so, the hipppos would have been tilted way off or I would have had to cut off her teeth which play a huge part in the shot.
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Josh this is adorable! I love taking photos of them because they really are good models. But I've never taken anything like this :) Love the processing for this too.
Absolutely stunning! I love the exposure and gray tones on the hippos. Great use of DOF. There is something very serene about this photo. The OOF object in the front is a little distracting from the main subject though. i wonder how this would look with the object cropped out. Great photo either way!
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