Elephants

[Spalea]

David Lloyd: " The Story Behind the Picture

Matriarch, Maasai Mara 2011
Today’s post is something a bit new that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, that is to present the original straight out of camera raw files (sooc) alongside the final rendered versions.
The story behind this picture is represented here by four pictures: the final renditions, the final crop on the raw file, and the original raw file as the camera captured it, uncropped, untouched, straight out of camera. I hope these may give some idea of my thought processes behind taking this picture. For this particular one, I include the colour as well as the b&w one.
For all my pictures I choose to eschew Photoshop, favouring Lightroom instead and only, as I’m much more interested in honouring the scene as much as possible than to embellish it with something that was not there or not rendered by the camera. My internal rule is to keep everything to no less than 80% of the original raw file. Occasionally I may sneak a bit under for the crop aspect, but never by very much.
This was taken in the days before flip out screens. I used a 35mm lens on a camera on an upended monopod close to the ground and it was pretty much aimed blind. But with a little practice you can increase the keeper rate by a good bit. I’d also discovered a way to have elephants advance, rather than to chase them. It was me, my driver, and the elephant. Her family was a little way off, catching up.
The grass stems were the perfect balance to the elephant wandering out of frame. Things walking out of frame have never bothered me. They don’t always have to walk into space as the so called photographic compositional “rule” would like you to believe. In this case, the grass acted as the primary “rule” breaker.
Finally it was whether this picture was more suited to b&w than colour. I will generally favour the one which suits best, not necessarily force a b&w one when colour will do better. In this case I’ve never really been able to decide, so they come out equal and the result is I have two pictures for one.
If this post generates enough interest I’ll be very tempted to make it a regular post topic. Your comments are welcome! "

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