I found these yesterday right in my neighborhood.
I saw the adult and looked around a bit and found what I thought was a lone chick.
It was late afternoon in low light (they were almost backlit).
i took several shots and it was not until I got home, loaded and looked at the photos
did I even notice the second one hiding behind the tree.
Great Horned Owlets
It is amazing how well these guys blend in. I wish the entire body of the rear owlet was included but understand that it wasn't because you didn't see him. A vertical comp was the right choice for this image. I would do some eye doctoring to bring out the yellow in the eyes,
gail
Great find. You will be spending lots of time in the neighborhood for a while. They look old for March, guess mom and dad got an early start this year. So cute!
Thanks for the nice comments.
Gail, I have never done as much PP work on any photo, ever.
This is about as much as I could get.
As soon as I saw the second one I cropped (it is 25% of the original) and coaxed, brightened, toned down, whatever was required
because I liked it so much!
The cutest chicks in the bird world, for me.
This is as good as I could get for now. I hope to get better in the next few weeks. but it is a tough spot to get good photos,
so I may just be happy to watch them grow.
It was 1/200 in really bad light (one of the few times I wish I had a tripod).
Dan, this is my kind of image. Natural, tells a fun story. (Even if it does have some challenges). I think your processing is perfect. No way would those eyes have been yellow given your light angle. Only thing I would do is darken the pupils a bit to get rid of that hazy look. I've played around just a bit with the crop and I think you could come up from the bottom quite a bit to where that horizontal stick intersects the lower chick and have another nice interpretation of this scene.