B&W treatment of a big hairy bull

[Tony M]

While in North Yorkshire on holiday, I came across this huge hairy bull. From the safe position of the other side of the fence, I poked the camera between the barbed wires and took this photo. I thought it more interesting as a B&W image and so created this in Lightroom. There are so many ways to represent an image in B&W that I found it quite difficult to decide what to do. I've not done film-based photography, and I suppose that digital processing frees one from the constraints of B&W film, providing a variety of ways to filter the various frequencies.

So did I do a decent job? Any suggestions?


Canon 40D, 85mm, 1/1000s at f/5.6, ISO 400

Tony

[Geoff F]

The animal is very centrally placed; in fact there is slightly more space between its tail and the image edge than at the head end. It would look better the other way round. So a slight crop from the right side.

Can you get away with slightly boosting the highlights without over exposing the clouds?

[Digital]

That is one very nice photo of a hairy bull.


Bruce

[Rob Zijlstra]

Tony, I would try to get the darkness of the bull a bit less so that his eyes become visible.

[dabhand]

Tony - nice image and I agree with Geoff - it would be even better that way.

Rob - I think you'd have to trim his fringe if you wanted to see his eyes better - I'll stand by with the mirror while you nip in with the scissors ;-)

steveb

[Tony M]

Thanks for your comments. I cropped a bit off the right and showed a bit more to the left; any more and a distracting tuft of dry out-of-focus grass in the foreground would have appeared. I also reduced the shadows and now you can just see one of his eyes. I decided not to take the scissors to him; that's beyond my digital capabilities!

It does look better. I first decided not to reduce the shadows so much but now think it's better. Thanks for the suggestion.



Tony

[Rob Zijlstra]

Looking better now I can his evil eye!

[Geoff F]

Yes, much better.