Exactly, am still processing and deleting my last to last trip's images. Have not touched a single image from kazi. Processing one image, seeing it for 3-4 days and then if I still like it am keeping it or its going to the trash can. Black n white processing depends so much on the mood. I think the dark areas are going too well. The shadow area is helping a lot to emphasize the pattern on the body of the rhino. I remember, in one of my sarus crane images, both you and Praveen thought that the dark areas were too over powering, but I did that intentionally so that it brings out the subtle layers of light and the head of the birds in the grassland. I still am sticking on to that version. The moment I saw this image, I could relate the thoughts in your mind too , certain areas having over powering blackness or darkness helps to enhance subtle play of light so graciously . It's like seeing a very beautiful fair lady clad in a black saree and still attracting all eyes to her , lovely analogy no ??? hahahahaha. If you ask me, this version is simply out of the world.

Brilliant use of the " dark negative space' . Does add to the mystic of the image . I saw this on my calibrated monitor at home and now at my office on the uncalibrated one . The mood changes dramatically . A big issue when you have people viewing this in differently uncallibrated monitor , enough to ensure that the mystic about the image is lost . This image is top notch !!!

Amazing image Ganesh. Background gives a nice pencil stroke feel to the image. As others say other than monitor calibration which is very crucial for images like these printing these images also seems non trivial. Would be nice to know your thoughts on how you go about preparing such images for print. Mapping the image tonal range to printer tonal range seems like an exercise in itself.

The texture of leathery feel of the skin has come out so well. exposure is spot on. Is there detail left to show a shadow of the legs or is my monitor not showing it ?

I lust love the processing Ganesh, an article on B&W processing from you would be great!
Lots of mystery in this image because of the absence of detail in the legs, it gives it a floating feel

What I liked most here is the defocused grass blades in the background. Lovely !

Mahesh, you hit the nail on its head !! This has been my latest frustration. While I have calibrated workflow for printing - monitor -> printer+paper combinations I don't have the reference light to see the print. Secondly, there are some physics limitations - more so when it comes to mapping tonal ranges in darker shades from monitor to paper - very frustrating indeed, but I am over coming/learning some of them at the expense of wasted expensive fine art papers. Tonal ranges at top end seem to get beautifully mapped - so no issue at all but in the darker ranges there seem to be about 20 levels (in the scale of 0-256) of difference in intensity mapping which is tricky to handle. I need to open up the image more - does not look good on monitor well but then comes correctly as print. This is a tedious process prone for mistakes and paper wastages. Probably reference light to see the prints will solve the problem. Little bit of browsing to solve this issue led me to Solux 4700K print viewing solution. Hopefully I will be able to solve this never ending frustrating end-to-end calibration issues for good in the near future..