Bald Eagle and its Trophy

[Raymond Lee]

138524


Gold Bar Park, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Canon EOS 7D | Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS + Kenko 1.4x Teleplus PRO 300 DGX + Canon Extender EF 1.4x II
Manual mode, 1/1250 sec., f/7.1, ISO 640, handheld

Took this shot during my 1-hour break from work. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed the ducks were flying upward frantically, and I knew there must be something going on. As I walked down to the dog leash trail, which is next to the North Saskatchewan River, the Bald Eagle stood proudly on the frozen river with a Mallard. The first thing that came to my mind is the trophy hunting pose, and hence the title. As for post-processing, it's just cropping, colour balance, shadow/highlight adjustment, and some sharpening. I left everything the way it is. I can probably see the potential of graduated Gaussian blur layer on the background to reduce that intersecting snow/ice texture behind the Bald Eagle's head.

All C&Cs are welcome!

Thanks,
Raymond

[Alan Murphy]

Killer content here with a great pose. The only thing better would be if you were able to get low to shoot it.

[Troy Lim]

Eye level would have taken this to the next level. Nice catch for both of you.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Fantastic event photographed well! Nice triumphant pose, sharp, lit well. Mallard's head a little dark, but nothing serious. Well done! :5

[christopher galeski]

nice one,good title,love the pose,sharp with nice detail.

[David Salem]

What a great find and the Eagle looks very powerful standing over the Mallard. The techs and details look great and the frozen lake makes a cool scene for this shot.
I dont do this often so I hope you dont mind but I thought a landscape format lessened the shooting angle a bit compared to the vertical. I added some canvas on the right real quick and bumped up the blacks and the saturation a few points.
See what you think? Nice work getting out there and finding this natural setup in front of you.

[Karl Egressy]

Excellent action shot with great details, Raymond.

[Shawn Zierman]

Excellent image! I like the natural history, and the brutality of what is seen. I enjoyed the OP as is. The repost is too contrasty imo, although I do like the horizontal space...I'll bet you shot this both ways anyway. The shooting angle works well imo, lower and the feathers on the ice would not have the nice definition that they do....lower is not always better.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the proud hunter pose, details, sharpness, exposure and setting. Great opportunity and image!

[gail bisson]

This is a shot I have dreamed of taking!
I think that it needs a couple of points of black added to the neutrals.
Love the story and the IQ.
Super shot!! Congrats,
Gail
PS Just looked at David's repost and I like the landscape orientation. It definitely helps give the illusion that you have a lower POV.

[Raymond Lee]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I should have mentioned that I took the shot while sitting at the edge of the river bank, which is 2 m above the partially thawed water, and there was no river shoreline in front of the eagle. I agree with Shawn's comments: lower is not always better, and the higher angle shows the feathers on the ice. The shot above was shot in landscape orientation, I made it vertical orientation trying to illustrate more of a portrait of a hunter standing on its trophy.

In the re-edit below, I changed it to 4:3 landscape orientation, added just a tiny bit black in the head and the talons through a curve adjustment, used graduated Gaussian blur layer behind the eagle, cloned out some of the ice/snow texture near the eagle's head, lightened up the Mallard's head, and desaturated the blue in the shadow.

138566

Thanks,
Raymond

[Randall Farhy]

Raymond, This image is a spectacular example of both nature's magnificence, and harsh realities. Having never seen a Bald Eagle in the wild, this capture demonstrates it's scale and power -that Talon position is worth more than a thousand words. I can't add anything to the critique that hasn't already been said, but I will say I like the landscape version much better as it gives a stronger sense of the battle, and environment. TFS-R

Edit-"In the wild"