Wildebeest B&W (Connochaetes gnou)

Canon 1D mark ii + Canon 300mm f2.8L IS

This wildebeest (Connochaetes gnou) is a tight portrait I made while on safari in Tanzania. We were immersed in a sea of ungulates when I realized that I was too close to make the images I wanted. With dust everywhere and the feeling that the moment was I about to end, I chose to continue working with my 300mm lens rather than waste time switching out cameras. Below is the original pic that has sat in the reject bin until now. I decided to rework the photograph for this post by applying a "creative" black and white digital filter. Here the emphasis has been placed on the tonality in the fur rather than the actual animal. All processing began with Aperture 3.4.3 and was finished in Photoshop CS5. The lead image was further manipulated with Topaz B&W Effects II to produce the painterly-lik output that is pictured above.