Barred Owl with Snake

[Bill Bryant]

I located this guys nest, and staked it out for a few hours... until feeding time!

1DmkII, 600mm, 1/10th, f7.1, ISO 400, flash, full Wimberly head
Needed to remove red eye in PS3

Bill Bryant
Dallas, TX
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryant99/

[Rebecca Gossard]

I like! Owl photos are never easy..

[Ramon M. Casares]

I like it very much, specially the the fact that one can apreciate the claws, although in stead of just desaturating the red eyes I would've taken them to plain black. Nice shot still. Congrats!

[Lance Peters]

Love the action - well done.

I find the OOF leaves top right a little distracting and the eyes just look a little over worked in IMHO.

Never the less - still like it.

[Doug Brown]

Great feeding action. Those owls will eat the most amazing stuff! Here's a quick rework of your photo to try to deal with the eyes and the OOF leaf.

[Bill Bryant]

Thanks everyone. Doug, I'm not sure I like the eyes going so dark... seems to kind of suck the life out if it. I also didn't mind the leaves in the upper left you removed.. they kind of communicate that these guys are usually hidden in the trees, and it sort of explained the shadow on top of the head.

I do agree with Lance that the leaves in the upper right are distracting, but not sure how to best deal with them. I can't really crop it any tighter on the top or right, so I am left with either leaving them, or a complete PS retouch.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Not an easy setting to photograph the owl. I like the eye contact and snake. The pupil should be darker for my taste. I find the OOF leaves a bit distracting but can see your reasoning. Thanks for sharing!