While on a weekend trip to Orlando, my husband and I went on the safari ride at Animal Kingdom. On the ride, we saw these elephants and I quickly captured them with my iPhone. If you’ve been on the safari ride, you know that they slow down a little, but rarely stop for the passengers to take photos of the animals. While I think I got a good shot of the two elephants, there is a lot of vegetation in the foreground and really all around them. You can tell the photo was taken from a distance.
Using Photopea, I cropped my original image. Now, in my new image, the elephants appear much closer and you can see more detail. You almost feel like you could reach out and touch them. Using the rule of thirds, I cropped out some of the vegetation in the foreground and all around them to bring them more into focus. In this picture, your eye is drawn to the lighter colored elephant in the front, but you are also able to observe the darker elephant in the background. A trip to Africa is on my bucket list, but for now, Animal Kingdom in Orlando will have to do!
Your cropped image shows good judgment in the fact that you cropped in using the rule of thirds and changed the focal point to take out unnecessary background information that is distracting.
I do not see another way that the image could have been cropped because of the quality of the photo, also the elephant you chose is in better lighting and a more dynamic pose.
I don’t ave any suggestions for improvement. Good job!
Hi Sheryl,
The cropped image of the elephants is very nice. You are correct, in the original image, the elephants look too far away and there was so much trees and vegetation surrounding it. I want to look at the elephants, but all the vegetation was distracting. It does change the meaning from the original image because the main focus is now on the elephants. It gives the illusion that they are closer than they actually are.
The way you cropped the image is great. I would not have cropped the image any other way. The main elephant is within the rule of thirds. The second elephant on the other side helps balance out the image. You cropped out enough of the vegetation to make it less distracting.
A small suggestion is maybe improve the quality of the cropped image. It seems a little pixel or blurry looking, I think? It might be my computer screen resolution or my eyesight, who knows. But overall, nice job.