The Elephant's Eye

Comments/suggestions welcome.

Beautiful composition. ~Gopi~

excellent shot jeff. the texture is wonderful. he/she looks so sad, it stirs a great deal of empathy in me, especially regarding how we as human treat other living beings.

Love this one Jeff!!! The texture of the wrinkles is amazing! Great exsposure!! Nice framing!!

Yes great texture, nice in b@w

Great detail. The B&W tones are great in this. Great work. Danielle

I find this photo fascinating. The patterns of the wrinkles are endlessly interesting, and I've never seen an elephant's eye in just this way.

Such a noble beast. Wonderful capture with incredible details. I feel tenderness and compassion when I look at this.

Agreed! Great patterns and textures. It's like an animal turned landscape. But it's not just an abstract. As much as the lines and details are impressive, I still feel a lot of expression here, as the skin droops and drags and curves and hangs around the eye. Really interesting and different shot, Jeff. A pleasure.

Wow, so interesting and original. He looks so wise with all those wrinkles:))

As others have stated, this has at least two levels. The first one is the level of textures and tones, and the second one is the emotion in the elefant`s eye. This works so well for me. I really like this one!

 

Alpo

Great shot and great tones and contrasts in this excellent image! Bravo, Jeff! Bye, Maury

This one could easily make me cry - such emation you have captured! And amazing detail. This is so sad Jeff. But I must thank you for sharing it. It really is beautiful!

Another awesome photo Jeff. You have a real talent for this and I'm thrilled that you liked some of my shots. I'm making the switch to DSLR, I still haven't decided if it's the Canon XT or XTi. I have a film Rebel that I use sometimes when I'm more adventurous, I happend to have it the other day after shooting some pictures of a parade my son was in, I dragged it along on a trip to a park to finish off the roll and, as it sometimes happens, we came accross this wonderful moth. I still like shooting film, and I think that challenges me more because now I have to worry about the film speed as well as other factors. Unfortunately, I had a slower speed film than what I would have liked for the moth and I also could have used a macro lens (which I don't have yet). But I think the zoom lens worked pretty well. Anyways, I'm leaning towards the XT, I may make that decision this weekend, I found a nice shop (Adler's) in Providence that I've been to a couple times I'll be down there on Saturday, hopefully I can make the plunge. All the best, Bob

Very good close-up, Jeff.

Jeff, Is this elephant in a zoo? I'm very against zoos. I went to the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park where the animals roam free a bit, but I've come to view all zoos as prisons really. And elephants are such family-minded animals like us. There was a Twilight Zone episode where the people were the zoo creatures.... Aside from all that, this is an amazing photograph. I agree with the above comments about the mastery of your skill capturing the lines and textures of the skin--like art--but the center is that soulful eye. This is a beautiful photograph. Best regards.

Wonderfully sharp details...

Wonderful texture and detail in those wrinkles, love the way you have framed this.

Donna, I agree with you about zoos. This (and my leopard shot) were taken at an unnamed zoo, where the animals seemed healthy enough, but seemed listless or anxious. I thought this elephant captured the sense of sadness that I saw in many of the animals during that visit. Thanks for your thoughtfulness in your comment.

it's an outstanding portrait for me! what an expression! truly amazing!

lovely shot

Monumental; an achievement befitting the subject. 7/7.

Wonderful close up, Jeff, great tones and details.

 

Alberto

good idea and shot..congrats

...in the jungle would not produce such a powerful image.Either in the zoo,or used as a beast of burden(R.Stones lyric)this animal has got it all.Kindness,tenderness and agression.B&W proved a wise decision and cropping is well controlled.Jeff,is it necessary to say 'congs' and 'bravo' every time I comment?Begins to feel like boring,shows people surfing from one pic to another,copy/paste hastily,in order to catch up with as many shots as they can.Time is always running out and that produces a lot of stress in PN,instead of exchanging ideas on shooting/or sit back and relax in front of an appealing image.