ELEPHANT BULL APPROACHING
Male African elephant
(Loxodonta africana)
Tarangeri National Park, Tanzania
Overview:
These ten images are from a body of work that is meant to bring dignity and value to all creatures in the African savanna. Rather than exhibiting dramatic or violent events, they are portraits that are meant to draw you in to the individual characteristics and personalities of each creature. I have purposefully included some of the more common species to emphasize my point.
Story behind image:
I placed myself in a place that looked like elephants usually passed. It didn’t take too long for me to be proven correct. I used a long lens to flatten the perspective as well as stay at a safe distance. The thing that intrigues me in this image is the number of different textures from dust, dry mud, dead skin as well as hair on the skin’s surface.
Technical details:
I capture my images with a specifically modified DSLR camera that can only see in the infrared spectrum. The advantage is that I am able to separate animals from their backgrounds because green foliage tends to go white but the downside is my camera is not as sensitive to light as most cameras and I have the toughest time getting focus with long lenses.
Disclosures:
This image is of a wild African elephant that roams freely within an enormous national park. I did not distress the animal. No bait was used to attract it.
In post production I converted this reddish infrared RAW file to black and white and did some dodging and burning as well as sharpening and contrast control. There has not been any dust-spotting or clean-up of any sort and certainly no retouching.
This image is 5545 × 4159 pixels without any interpolation and shows a rich and healthy histogram. It is perfect for large, high quality prints. (16 bit, proRGB can also be supplied if I you choose to ask for it)