Snowy Owl in 1st ray of light

[Jason G. Harrison]

Back in Feb. we were blessed to have a very rare occurence here in Missouri. Not 1 but 2 Snowy Owls had been found in the northwestern part of our state. I made a handful of trips up there in search of them and on 2 ocassions, I hit pay dirt. One Owl stayed in the middle of large fields most of the time, while the other, 15 miles away, often times hunted a particular field at first light.

On one of my trips, I obtained permission to gain access to this field and decided to set up there before dawn in hopes of catching the Owl hunting. Pre dawn found me with my 600Vr sneaking through the waist high weeds approaching a long fence line. I had observed this female Snowy Owl hunting along this fence line in previous attempts to photograph her. I set up and waited for good light. I did not have to wait long as I soon saw the Owl flying low over the field hunting along this fence line. She was working her way toward me.:)

As fate would have it, she worked up the fence line right to me and perched on this fence post RIGHT as a golden ray of sunlight came over a large rolling hill to our east. She gave me a wonderful look and pose. She hunted all around me that morning and offered me several nice photo ops. Hope you enjoy.

Taken with a D300, 600VR, f/4, ISO 800, 1/1600 ss, -.7EV

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Jason,
Lovely. It is good that your plans were fruitful. A natural perch would have been fantastic. I would have composed this with more space on the left than on right. Look forward to more from this trip.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Colin Driscoll]

Lovely, and a good lot of fruitful planning- I can imagine how thrilled you were to get this shot. I don't mind the perch because unfortunately this is now part of natural habitat AFA the bird is concerned.

[David Fletcher]

Well done Jason for being persistent. Like the comp and caress of light. Like Colin, don't mind the perch as how it was. WD!

[arash_hazeghi]

Lovely photo, perch is ok but I would clone out the barbed wire.

[Harshad Barve]

lovely image , nice pose & details , I dont mind perch but will clone out wire
TFS

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the pose and BG, the sidelight works nicely here but I would tone down the sunlit whites a bit. It's always a treat to see this species, let's hope for another good owl year.

[Michael Zajac]

Jason, Nice pose w/ the tilted head and the eye contact. Not fond of the perch. The compression in the BG is hurting the image.

[Jason G. Harrison]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. As Michael pointed out, compression is causing artifacts in the background. Full size file is clean but this sure bugs me for web display. Any one with suggestions on how to clean that up for web, or not worry about it?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good job in scouting the area, and your patience did pay off. The sidelighting did work out nicely for here. Good comp too. I don't mind the perch either for the same reason as Colin states. Only thing about the perch (and the bird for that matter) is the the details seem smoothed out...almost like NR was done too aggressively - or perhaps another image compression issue. How do you resize? Do you use PS Save for web, or other technique?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. As Michael pointed out, compression is causing artifacts in the background. Full size file is clean but this sure bugs me for web display. Any one with suggestions on how to clean that up for web, or not worry about it?

It certainly looks nicer if the BG is smoother. Did you use the blur tool? I often use the noise reduction tool in PS. There is a thread in the educational resources that might be helpful.

[Jason G. Harrison]

Good job in scouting the area, and your patience did pay off. The sidelighting did work out nicely for here. Good comp too. I don't mind the perch either for the same reason as Colin states. Only thing about the perch (and the bird for that matter) is the the details seem smoothed out...almost like NR was done too aggressively - or perhaps another image compression issue. How do you resize? Do you use PS Save for web, or other technique?

Daniel, I use NX2 for 99% of my workflow. I ran NR on the bg only. I wish I could go back to the raw file but these files among others were mistakenly lost during a back up, when a Mirror option was accidentally clicked and it mirroed a drive that did not contain them. So...I have to work on .jpgs, which is no fun. This image is about a 25-30% crop, with ISO 800 (not a big fan of that setting when cropping on my D300). I loose too much detail.

I resize to 800x600 @72DPI in NX2. I use CS2 for adding signature and other minor things.

Jason

[Jason G. Harrison]

It certainly looks nicer if the BG is smoother. Did you use the blur tool? I often use the noise reduction tool in PS. There is a thread in the educational resources that might be helpful.

Thanks Axel. I did run NR on the bg, but no blurr tool, etc...may try that. Thanks for the tip on the educational resources.

Jason

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Jason, Wicked cool image. Love the mood, the colors, and even the sidellight. Bummer about losing the RAWs. Not to worry, I have done much, much worse....

[Raymond Barlow]

this is an excellent image, and extremely well written story Jason... the best hing here is the all natural situation, and the keen effort you put into the capture of this image., really well done.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Wonderful moment in nature.