Juvenile Great Horned Owl

[Walker Noe]

I happened upon a family of these owls while searching for Elf and Western Screech Owls.

Postprocessing:

Usual sliders, eye work, sharpening, tiny crop for comp, removal of one small intruding branch in BG.

Tech:

Nikon D750
Nikkor AF-S 300mm f4D
1.4x TC
Nikon SB-910 (-1.0 EV TTL)
handheld

ISO 640
f/6.3
1/200

[John Mack]

Great pose on the owl. Love those eyes.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Walter, great eye contact here, and the flash looks subtle enough. Comp wise, I would come up from the bottom to remove the triangular piece of BG in the LRC. Are the catch lights natural ?

[gail bisson]

Very nice Walker.
I love the black BG and that direct gaze.
I would crop from the bottom as all that perch makes the image bottom heavy. It would also eliminate that black triangle on the bottom.
Details on the owl look good,
Gail

[Bill Dix]

Great find, Walker. Good details and wonderful direct eye contact. Yes to the cropping suggested above.

[Isaac Grant]

The owl master strikes again! Looks great with a direct stare and perfect head angle. Because the log is not in focus and was out of the focal plane I agree that cropping some off of the bottom would make a stronger image.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good suggestion to crop from below, and I would also level the bird (by drawing a line from top of pupil to the other top of pupil you will see the slant). Nice details, and good work from a night time environment. Those eyes are amazing.

[Walker Noe]

Thanks everybody. I will straighten and crop the image as suggested.