Mother and Calf

[Mrudul Godbole]

This was photographed in Bandipur last year. We were quietly waiting while these two grazed peacefully and came closer and closer to us. There were no other jeeps so it was a nice experience. After nearly half an hour another jeep came and stopped quite close to them, immediately the mother did a mock charge towards that Gypsy and went off. The lighting was a bit tricky as the background was dark and the vegetation in the foreground was lighted.

Canon 50D, 100-400mm L IS USM, ISO 400, 1/250, f8, hand held, full frame.

comments and critiques welcome..

[Bhargava Srivari]

The cluster of mud looks nice. Yes..seems like the light was tricky, but I feel that the image looks slightly over exposed!

Usually in bandipur, the no. of jeeps that go into the forest for safari are at the most 10-15 during the peak season during summers/weekends. During weekdays, it is hardly 6-7 jeeps So most of the tiume, one gets to sight wildlife at peace and the feeling of sighting a cat with no other jeeps around is indescribable (which you would know too) This might be one reason why frequenters to bandipur don't go often to places like bandhavgarh or ranthambore.

tfs

Bhargava

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Nice behavior captured, excellent freeze
tfs

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I like the composition. The lighting is fine. It is a problem with the invasive weeds. Due to the overall difference in light levels, if you expose for the weeds (there are small bright leaves that is more than a stop or so different than the others) then the subject (elephant) will be dark. And the distant background (the bamboos in shade) will become totally black. Unless, you are shooting the subject in frontal lighting in such conditions, the weeds will play havoc with the lighting.

Even in black and white, it will be the same case, because of the overall level of brightness.

In Bandipur it is tough when there are more vehicles, due to the low visibility because of lantana. Tourists here are equally noisy, if not more

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice timing. Agree with compo .looks nice, the dark bamboo in the bg and the mellow light further on gives depth and a nice feel to this image.
TFS
Roopak