About the Image(s)

Photo taken with a Fujifilm XT5 camera. ISO 500, 1/500 sec., f/5.0, 141.3 mm.
I went to the Living Desert Zoo this morning in the hopes of capturing an image I could submit to the April competition at my local club. I did not have any luck, but I did like this one with the camel looking straight at me, above the fence line, so I went ahead and edited it. It was very bright out but the animal moved in and out of the shade of a structure. When I saw its head lift up and look right at me, I pushed the shutter without adjusting my settings. As a result, I have a higher ISO than I otherwise would have if I had put the shutter speed back to 1/1000.
I ran the raw file through DxOPure Raw 4 and then exported to Lightroom and cropped in so the eyes are on the top thirds line. I played with global sliders, added luminosity, and then did local editing with masks to open up the shadows on the neck and near the eyes and darken the background. I also applied a radial mask to the mouth area to emphasize it.