Where Did It Go?

[Gabriela Plesea]

Taken this image in relatively poor lighting conditions; this Juvenile Pale Chanting Goshawk was half buried in grass, one leg clutching onto something on the ground (a lizard of sorts). I quite liked the pose and especially the eye, and since I did not have the whole bird in the picture I decided to save it from being deleted by doing a huge crop and retaining what I found most interesting - the expression on this bird's face. The BG was extremely busy so I painted over it as well as played with exposure, trying to "clean it up"(the BG). I did so much to this image , it would take me longer to write down every step than it did to actually process...I only stopped and saved it because CS6 was beginning to let me down...I recently noticed that when I do too much to an image Photoshop tends to crash, so before I lose all my work, here it is...

Nikon D3S
Nikon 500mm F4
ISO 1250
1/1000s
-0.7 EV
F7.1

Wishing you all a great week ahead,

[Cheryl Slechta]

Gabriela, I love the pose and the composition leaving room at the bottom for whatever the Goshawk is looking at. Lovely work

[Paul Lagasi]

I am also one of those people that hates to delete images, I try to make something out of every mage I take. Lovelely composition and effects. well done

[gary ellwein]

Great portrait with wonderful feather detail and composition.

[Judy Howle]

I love the intense gaze of the goshawk, a very nice capture! I think the composition is excellent as is the processing. BTW with CS6 you can set it to auto-save every 5 or 10 minutes in preferences I think. I set mine to the lowest amount, it may be 10 minutes. It has been a Godsend on several occasions when it crashed.

[Indranil Sircar]

Hi Gabriela, beautiful composition! I too love the pose and the details. Nice crop... looks like it is eyeing your signature TFS.

[Anita Bower]

Gorgeous details and colors! Wow! You did a fantastic job painting the bg. Excellent work. Love that intense gaze.

[Kerry Perkins]

Superb portrait Gabriela! Great job on the background, and your composition is wonderful. I love that expression too; you conveyed it in great style.