Ferocious and savage

I'm starting four back to back photo tours today. The first one is the Oregon Coast, then France, Uzbekistand/Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. I return home on Oct. 10. I hope my dogs still recognize me! You'll be seeing seascapes, architecture, great interiors, and more in the coming weeks, so I thought I would squeeze in another wildlife shot before I write about the travel images. Wolves seem like dogs in many ways until they show their fangs. Then their faces take on a whole new dimension. Ferocious and savage are words that come to mind. What is interesting about this picture (taken during one of my wildlife workshops) is that the handler was standing right behind the wolf. He hadn't released the animal into the large, fenced compound yet. In order to separate all that hair from the undesirable background, I used Topaz Remask 5. It did an amazing job in retaining the minute detail, and then I replaced the background with a picture of out of focus green foliage. My settings were 1/1000, f/5.6, 1000 ISO, and I used a 300mm f/2.8 Canon lens.