I like Elephants

A cute little song called:

Hope you like it as much as I do.

Made me smile Michael, sweet elephant here and there, I will show that little elephant song to my grandchildren....Thanks for sharing.

Are parts of the elephant too dark?

Pnina, sweet little song isn't it? and not only for children to enjoy. Try singing along - guaranteed it will reconnect your childhood. :-)

Well if you are hoping to make it to the cover of National Geographic...probably not enough detail showing. But who cares about NG anyway right? This is THE CIRCUS! Anyway...if you are hoping to get an artful portrait of the circus...it absolutely works. I like how you treated the noise and the tusks are super cool!

Thanks, Tiffany. The entire image was sharpened making the fog look artificial - should have sharpened the elephant only. The scene was lit under blue light so I had only the blue channel (normally the noisiest) to work with. These are occasions when I wish I had a lower noise camera and faster lens.

So it is a true situation - hat off!

Oh dear, DP, does it look like a composite photo? Yes, it's a real situation - circus performance and I had a ringside seat about 10 meters away.

Remarkable achievement under the circumstances. Congrats.

Good of you to drop in, Emmanuel. I was lucky to have a good seat. Shooting was easy. Much more difficult was enduring the screams of excited children. :-)

It has the feel of an intimate portrait. Timeless and moody with atmosphere. Fantastic image Michael.

Poor elephant; must be hard to stand on there. The pic is very good.

Thank you, Neil and Paula.

 

If you are referring to animal rights issues, Paula, I imagine traveling circuses can be rough on show animals, although I don't really know their treatment other than what I read in the media.

 

In this case, the elephant appears to have a genuine connection with her trainer, but you never know.

Read the book " Water for ellephants" written by Sara Gruen, and you will know....

 

Happy holidays to you and yours.

Cute song. I'll make sure my grandsons listen to it. I'll not get into the animal rights issue but stick to the photo. The dark subject surrounded by the lighter 'mist' makes for a very dramatic capture. With nearly all animal shots the most important part to capture, in my opinion, is the eyes which are sadly missing from this one. I know they're there but they are very difficult to see. Certainly adds an element of drama & mystery. A little fill flash might have helped though it might also have resulted in you having this beast in your lap. On second thought, take this one & run. Excellent shot for being restricted to a seat in the crowd. Best, LM.

I've got to agree with this part of Len's comment : "The dark subject surrounded by the lighter 'mist' makes for a very dramatic capture. With nearly all animal shots the most important part to capture, in my opinion, is the eyes which are sadly missing from this one." And I miss the skin texture on the legs etc in front. Not an easy back-lighting situation. You did fairly well given the task, but still, you have stronger shots in this series, I feel. Regards.

 

 

Thanks for the feedback, Len and Marc. I concur with you both on the eyes and might give it another tweak.

 

This was one of those highly restrictive situations where I felt lucky to get anything at all, so I'm reasonably pleased albeit imperfect and plenty of room for improvement.

 

Thanks for the reference, Pnina. I'll look it up.

Strange and beautiful; comes at you like a dream.

An honor to have your visit, Carlos. This is a fun image to play around with, and with the suggestions above, I just might give it another go at some point.

the nature of an image is what the viewer must first consider. Here we not looking at a promotional poster for the Ringling bros circus. Nor is this an image targeted at the infantile marketing of elephants for little children! What we see here is a representation of the animal in an otherworldly setting. This is not a pretty, airbrushed, NG sanitized wildlife version of an elephant, but rather an artist's impression, an ART picture that again comes at you like a dream (or nightmare)! As such it must be seen through the prism of sensation and not the minutia of perfection in details; eyes, skin texture, etc… Such technicalities would be counterproductive to the power of the shot; the noise, fog, haze, the 'imperfection', is precisely what serves the picture so perfectly! We left with an archetypal image: (def: In Jungian psychology, an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious).

 

 

I would leave the picture exactly as is. It, and sister images, definitely ‘hooked’ me and lifted ‘the pictures beyond the picture frame and into the realm of the mind’.

Congratulations, Michael. Sincerely, Carlos.

 

 

Following is something Jack McRitchie recently wrote and that gets, beautifully right, the experience of ‘seeing’.

Jack McRitchie: ( http://photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=1572283 )

 

 

I think the first task that a photographer must accomplish is to fix the fickle, wandering attention of the viewer. I have a certain point of view when it comes to photography and that is the importance of engaging the viewer in the creative process. I'm not so much interested in viewer as passive admirer or even viewer as critic. There must be some way (in my opinion) for the picture to hook the curiosity of the serious viewer and stimulate the onlooker to somehow actively participate in the experience, lifting the picture beyond the picture frame and into the realm of the mind - whether visually, emotionally or intellectually. It is this lack of explicitness that serves as entryway and allows the mind to play. -

 

Michael, wonderful little song! it makes me wish my girls were small enough to not be mortified if i bought the CD. beautiful photograph! the elephant is so elegant

A very successful and iconic picture that will be just as good 100 years from now.