Donna Beasley
![Zebra with Child by Donna Beasley](images/Zebra-with-child_final.jpg)
July 2024 - Zebra with Child
About the Image(s)
The photo was shot in February 2024 while I was on an African Safari in Tanzania. It was shot with a Sony mirrorless a6000 camera with my 55-210 lens. My goal during that trip was to take portraits of the animals.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
4 comments posted
Elements of portraits usually work with the eyes and the background. Many times the most expressive eyes are when camera/lens is about eye level to our subject.
Quality of light is always important for portraits and we can find many examples in art that are side light - Rembrandt lighting- or backlight. Front lighting is fine as long as the light is soft. Some times when the light is harsh you can add softness by using a flash.
The light is very good on safari either early starting just before sunrise or later until half an hour or so after sunset. This light is sure to flatter the animal.
I usually try to take images when the animal has a clean background and even then try to achieve some bokeh by using a telephoto lens to get some compression.
I love the brown coloring on the smaller common zebra. I have a collection of 'butt' shots from my trips too.   Posted: 07/12/2024 11:18:58
Quality of light is always important for portraits and we can find many examples in art that are side light - Rembrandt lighting- or backlight. Front lighting is fine as long as the light is soft. Some times when the light is harsh you can add softness by using a flash.
The light is very good on safari either early starting just before sunrise or later until half an hour or so after sunset. This light is sure to flatter the animal.
I usually try to take images when the animal has a clean background and even then try to achieve some bokeh by using a telephoto lens to get some compression.
I love the brown coloring on the smaller common zebra. I have a collection of 'butt' shots from my trips too.   Posted: 07/12/2024 11:18:58
Its a cute picture of a baby Zebra with mama. The pathway in the background is distracting, I would have tried a different angle to avoid it and to get a better background. I think a shallower depth of field on a telephoto lens would have worked good too.   Posted: 07/17/2024 20:10:41
Adorable photo of parent and child. Ideally, I would try to get an angle without the road in the background or one that adds visual interest -trees, mountains etc. Sometimes, by dropping down lower you may be anow to achieve both of these goals. There's no information given about aperture or shutter speed but the animals seem in sharp throughout. You could try dropping a few stops to bring focus to the animals.   Posted: 07/17/2024 20:14:18
Lovely photo. As others mentioned the road and 2 black figures in the background are distracting and in this case a tighter crop would not help. Would be interesting to know aperture and shutter speed - to my eyes the Mother is sharper than the baby.   Posted: 07/23/2024 18:02:58