Busy backgrounds

By all artistic standards in photography, the environment in this photo is too busy.  I talk a lot about clean, non-distracting backgrounds, and this picture seems to break all the rules.  However, I like it.  I had never seen a genet before, and I was very happy to get this shot.  So, that's part of why I like this image. The sunset lighting is too yellowish for my taste in this particular situation, but I do like the way the eyes of the animal are illuminated by the low angled sunlight.  The thornbush is part of the African landscape, and in this instance it shows the genet's habitat.  In that context, I like the picture very much.  I also like the way the animal is alert.  Not all wildlife photography has to follow rules or be perfect in a fine art sense. All wildlife photographers take pictures with problematic backgrounds, bad lighting, out of focus and distracting foregrounds, etc. As I said, this picture does break a lot of rules or guidelines that I try to live by, but it nevertheless works for me largely because the genet's face is clearly visible in the tangle of branches and thorns and those eyes are so compelling.  My settings for this picture were 1/640, f/14, 1000 ISO, and I used the new Canon 100-400mm lens on a 7D Mark II body.