Lion B&W

[botspur]

When I saw the plain and dull background of this picture I knew I had to try B&W. I tried to isolate and focus on the lion as much as possible but keep some of the foliage to put him in his environment.



C&C welcomed

[Donald]

Now you're getting into gear with the B & Ws. I assume that wasn't him smiling for you!

On the subject of those teeth, when I opened the image they and that bit of fur around his mouth, initially struck me as being too bright. I wondered about burning those areas just ever-so-slightly to tone them down a bit?

Otherwise, the exposure is, I think, good in that you have indeed isolated him from the background, but we see enough to know that this is the real thing - an animal in the wild in his territory.

[botspur]

Hi Donald, many thanks.
This male didn't move for ages and he was doing what lions do most of the day - sleep. Suddenly he yawned and this is at the end of that yawn. The trick is that you know the yawn is coming and you have to be ready for it, but it usually arrives when you've just put down the camera to relax. So after an hour of inactivity there is mayhem for seconds.

I'm really enjoying the B&W challenge and I can feel myself leaning towards the technique especially with wildlife.

I will look at toning down the image a bit around the teeth, on my home screen it doesn't look too bad but on my work screen I can see what you mean.

Your and other members comments are making me look at my images with a different eye and thanks indeed to all.