Lurking on the Shadows

[Dvir Barkay]

My first ever owl, well at least in the last 10 years. I was lucky that my dad noticed a weird silhouette behind some tree branches about 10 meters to the side of the trail in John Hienz Wildlife Refuge. We walked a bit into the woods to get a better look and the owl just sat there and let us take shots. He was incredibly inquisitive following our every move and just staring at us. The setting sun illuminated his right hand side making for great light. I took over 300 shots, and so I am going to try all kinds of crops and ideas, but this was the generic full body portrait. The light was so great I did little photoshop (other than removing a branch and a little contrast) and little added saturation.

Sony A77, Tokina 300/4
f/5.6, ISO 500, 1/640s, about 20-25% cropped off

[Dvir Barkay]

Not sure why but the thread name came out "on" instead of "in", so that is my mistake.

[Henry Domke]

I read Artie Morris's book "Art of Bird Photography" a decade ago an unfortunately I did not pay enough attention to some of his suggestions. One suggestion has to do with light angle. In general he favors pointing your shadow at the bird so that the illumination is more even. This picture has extreme side light. I spent a minute in Photoshop trying to see if I could fix it up, but I still think it does not work. If you have not read Artie's books I suggest that you do. I am re-reading them and still learning stuff.

It is a very cool bird but if you had positioned yourself to get better lighting would have helped a lot.

[Dvir Barkay]

Thanks for the suggestion and I like your edit, I went for a more natural edit the first time around. I actually had no option since if I went to the left so that the sun would fully illuminate the bird, and lets assume he would turn his head towards me as well, his body would still be leaning towards the other side. So in other words he is facing the shadow as you can see he is perched so that the sun is to his back. I tried walking left, but this is the best I could do as there is a frozen lake right next to me here. I do have a pose were he is looking to the left, and he is in profile with the sun fully on his face, but than you do not get to see both eyes.

[Marina Scarr]

THis is an interesting image, but I think it would have made a great environmental shot if you had gone wide and made the owl small in the frame. I personally believe in shooting in all light angles, not just light coming from over my shoulder. You might decrease your yellow a bit and see how it looks.