dcstep

Thank you.

Hi David, in 2011, I was sitting on the door sill of my car, looking to the front, trying to shoot a pheasant flying across the road, where they normally crossed. I felt a presence behind me and turned to see this coyote, just as it saw me. I was down at it's level, with a 500mm lens on a Canon 7D.

I'm trying to get this to Sam, for his Photo Of The Week thread in Casual Conversations. I had it Public for a few moments. Hopefully, he can grab it. I may need to just send him a file. I normally use Flickr, but I didn't want people to see the reference to me. I love it that you recognize my signature style, which simply just happened.

The side story to this picture is that Getty Images sell this image for me almost every month. The Boston Globe first used it in a story about urban coyote. Now, any journalist writing a similar story Googles, sees this in other stories and that it's available from Getty, so they click and I make another few bucks. Although it's sold dozens of times, I've probably made less than $600 on it.

I don't see it as artificially Saturated. In Colorado, I often shoot scenes that have incredible, naturally saturated colors. I think the altitude and sun angle results in some colors that would be "unreal" in other places that I've lived. With low angle, naturally filtered light, as in Doug's image, these colors seem "real" to me. Perhaps Doug feels like letting us know, maybe not, but that's okay.

Very nice shot. I love the colors and atmosphere.

As I revisit the image, including 300%, the boat is almost believable. I see a part of the rope that is not blue and makes me think that someone might have actually painted a rope blue. This color of boat reminds me of many boats that I saw in the Greek Isles that were very close to this color. The bottom of the boat and gunnels show reasonable wear and differing color. At 300%, the boat does look like its floating above the water to me.

I can believe the boat color, I can believe the placid water, I can believe the haze in the BG, yet I accept this as a manipulated image. It doesn't bother me. If the boat were floating above the water, then that would bother me. The closer that I look at the boat coloring, it's believable, but the blue rope is a big question for me, yet there and inch or two at the end that's not colored.

I still like it a lot. Would I put a 50" version on my wall? Not before I saw a full resolution file and could resolve the issues about the construction of the image and how they'd look in a much larger format.

Ah, the blue rope is a problem for me also.

I love this image. The color of the boat is perfect and the perspective leads from the rope to the distant sunset. The reflections of the clouds and the shadow of the boat, all line up perfectly aiming toward the distant resolution. I like that the horizon dissects the image, giving the sky even weight with the boat and reflection. A horizon split other than 50-50 would not be as strong with this subject, IMO. Other than the boat, there's a softness that I enjoy, in contrast to sharp focus on the boat.

Sorry, but I don't have any suggested improvements.

I think that this image isn't about luck, it's about preparation, innovation and execution. If there were only one great image, then it might be luck, but Marsel's whole portfolio demonstrates unique perspectives and innovative technique. He knew that he couldn't simply lay in the grass and wait for a male lion to come by, perturb the lion, take a few shots with his wide angle lens and walk away unscathed. Still, he wanted the shot and came up with a method to get it.

Being only  a relative noob at wildlife photography, I'm certain that a lot of persistence went into this shot. Knowing the target animals' likely behaviour, daily meandering habits, setting up for good light all went into this shot. Even with my own mundane shots, people will say things like, "You were really lucky to get that" not giving me any credit for arriving at dawn, three days in a row and sitting in my mini-blind for hours at a time, waiting on a bird or animal to come by and do its "normal" behaviour.

Yes, you keep trying and trying and then you get "lucky." I think that anyone attributing this stunning image to luck, has never really tried to create something special themselves.

I hope this image receives many awards and makes Marsel a very happy man.

I'm not sure, but the heavy shadow may be natural. Whether it is or not, it's confusing.

The strong shadows, cutting through the fog are an important part of this image. It's unfortunate that the shadow pointed out by JDM looks odd. I might selectively darken it so that the level of detail is the same as on the tree trunk for that same shadow.

The fog and light and shadows through the fog are very inviting to me. I like that detail is maintained in the dark section to the left. At first I thought of cropping much of that out, but the details in there draw me in as an area of secondary interest.

This is a great image that stimulated a lot of philisophical discussion. I see it as a study in light and colors, much preferring the original crop to any of the others presented. The added water in front of the island give more range of color and light. The range of cool to warm color is stunning. I think that all the proposed crops dilute the color and light range, taking away from the image.
I'll admit that I saw the multiple lightning strikes in the image and immediately thought, "unreal." Now that Paolo tells us that this is a 75-second exposure, then I think, "Ok, I can believe that." That was the only element that bothered me at all.
Paolo probably didn't construct this image to please photographers and I think that's the best decision. What he's done is powerful and shouldn't be diluted by the arbitrary "rules" of certain people.