Giraffe Portrait

Alright, I found this picture through #CritiqueGuru and I figured I'd write a critique before posting my own pictures there. I picked your picture because I thought it was really hard to write one... I see a lot of things that are right, and not so many that are wrong <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/w/w…" width="15" height="15" alt="" title=" (Wink)"/>

I love how sharp the picture is. Like you said, you can see the droplets on his chin. The backlight is also great, it doesn't lose any vision on the giraffe itself yet it gives the droplets on the chin a kind of "sparkly" look.

What could have been improved is the angle. While I love that you can only see the giraffe and nothing else to distract, you can still see that you stood below the giraffe. Of course I know they're very tall so it can't be helped (<img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/w/w…" width="15" height="15" alt="" title=" (Wink)"/>), but IMO it might have been even better if you were on equal ground with the animal. On the other hand I absolutely love that the background consists of sky only. Sets off the giraffe nicely.

A last thing is just a suggestion: perhaps this picture would be even more awesome if you made it into a square. Sometimes that just "works" for pictures and sometimes it doesn't. I can't be sure here but I think it would be lovely ^^

Final note on the stars: the vision rating thing I think has not much use for zoo photography IMO, usually they are just beautiful pictures, without a specific idea behind them (it can be done of course, but that's my experience), I'd give all my own pictures 2 stars on that I think xD I did give originality high stars because I think the angle, background and lighting are something I haven't seen before.

Hope it helps <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s…" width="15" height="15" alt="" title=" (Smile)"/>