One of the crowned sifaka at Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens, Oxfordshire, UK.

This individual is a male called Youssou, who was born in 1998 and who came to the Cotswold Wildlife Park from Muséum de Besançon in 2009. He is currently the only sifaka mixed in with several lemur species in the Madagascar walk-through exhibit, and in this photo he was keeping an eye on some of the ring-tailed lemurs playing down below.

I love the way in which he seemed to nestle in the crook of this tree stump, with that ‘looking over the shoulder’ pose. As you can see, the enclosure is roofed over with wire mesh (there are several free-flying bird species in the exhibit, as well as the various primates). I know many would go to great lengths to remove anything which hints at ‘captivity’ from their zoo photos, but I tend to take the opposite view and often include such features, trying to use them in the composition. In this case, I feel that the patterned effect which the mesh gives that portion of the image helps to balance the rest of the photo, which might otherwise feel bottom-heavy.

image edit

The original needed some slight exposure correction and a little cropping/straightening:

I thought about cropping out more of the vegetation on the left, but I think leaving it in again helps in balancing the image.

I also increased the Vibrance slightly in Lightroom, to bring out the lovely colouring in the sifaka’s coat, and in the wood and sky.

Finally a slight vignette centres attention onto the main subject.