Judges Comments

The lighter than normal rendering of this image (though not high key) works very well. The details in the wrinkling of the skin on these animals has been well emphasized, there are nice reflections
visible in the waterhole and the background gives context but is unobtrusive. The bright processing also diminishes the impact of the hard light that is casting shadows with hard edges across
the animals. I also thought the composition with a group of three animals and then a separated figured worked nicely and the image feels comfortably placed within the frame. There may
have been a sky replacement used in the image as some of the background scrub does not seem perfectly integrated, especially on the right of the image.