Giraffe portrait

Just another shot of a giraffe. Actually he was pretty far away-40 yards? Taken with 200mmL lens, handheld. Comments welcome.

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Lighting was not kind, but sweet shot

yes it was terribly bright and I tried a lot of photoshopping to get it right. Would using a hood on the lens make a difference in the photo in bright light?

The hood is there for incidental light coming into the lens, not for the giraffe. The giraffe needs an umbrella.

It'd be nice if the zoo opened up at 6:30am and closed at 8pm. THEN we'd get some awesome shots. They can close from 9am to 5pm. Who needs photos then?

Funny comment! I agree about the hours. Last time I went I got there before anyone and frantically ran around taking shots before the sun was really bright--then deleted them from the first hour by mistake. I was so mad...Live and learn (hopefully).

By the way, I completely created his eye on photoshop as it was totally black. Is that cheating?????

Not cheating at all. Back in my old darkroom, I had a small piece of cardboard on a thin wire. I would move the cardboard over sections that I wanted to print lighter. It's a dodge tool. Take a look at the "Dodge Tool" icon in Photoshop. That's what it looked like.

It's not cheating to selectively expose certain areas of your photograph.

Then again, you said you "CREATED" the eye. It came out very nice, just the same.

the angle seems quite high,i take it you were on some kind of platform?
Nice pose,sad looking face though.