Nature Pics - Feedback please!

[shrutebucks]

Here are two shots from a trip to the zoo a few months ago. I brightened up the lion in CS4 but I may have overdone it...don't know if it looks clownishly bright?

How would you improve these?

Thanks!

 

[Gaerek]

On 1, the background is pretty distracting. The neck of the flamingo blends with the body of the other. A different composition, maybe with just the foreground flamingo would look nice. Also, I'd make sure to put some deadspace in front of the bird, and not behind.

#2 isn't a bad shot. I might crop it so that there's deadspace in front of the lion (I have a theme going here, I guess), but that's about it.

Nice work, keep shooting and posting.

 

[shrutebucks]

cool, thanks! do you think the edit job is too much, on the lion? like does the whole thing look unnaturally bright?

 

[...take the shot!]

There not too bright on my screen, levels look good.
I agree with Gaerek about the flamingos. I like the water drops.
The lion looks weird but whatever. Why not get his whole body.

 

[myfotoguy]

I agree with Gareak about the space in front of the lion and the flamingo (the direction it's looking).

The exposure and colors look good!

 

[lvcrtrs]

Brightness on #1 looks good on the Flamingos face. Now bear in mind, things can looks different on all of our monitors. If I pull the plug on this laptop the settings have the sceen dim a good amount. That being said I would try to decrease the contrast just a bit on the lion and see how you like it. Never save over your original and you can save your edits as version 1, 2 etc so you can compare and see what you really like. You did a nice job with the focus on the eyes of both shots.

 

[HikinMike]

On the first one, you should have composed this as a portrait format instead of a landscape format. As it is, you cropped the legs off. I'd like to see the whole Lion on the second shot too. The lighting is good on both.

 

[shrutebucks]

great feedback guys, thanks. i agree, should have done a portrait of the flamingo and left space in front of him, not behind. the lion definitely got cropped too much. I have some more I took of the lion, maybe there's a better shot somewhere.

lvctrs: i do have the original saved, as well as a couple of other edits. i tried a B&W as well, but kinda liked how this one popped!