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Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Free Study 2009-05 (Advanced Editing VII)
Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR DG IF-ED
Location: Mountsberg
Date: May 18, 2009
Aperture: f2.8
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/3000
Galleries: Nature, Animals
Date Uploaded: May 18, 2009

This is a Bard Owl, who I photographed at the Mountsberg Raptor conservatory.

This girl's real name is Tommy (the staff at the centre though she was a boy when she first came in... only to witness him laying a few eggs months later).

After reading the critique by boyd2000, which i really appreciate, I just wanted to outline that the bird eyes are black. So, although she is blind, the eyes are still there.

Also, I just realized that I completely misspelled the bird type... its supposed to be barred owl, not bard, which makes my name for it a bit nonsensical.
She is blind in her right eye, and near blind in her left and was left brain damaged after being hit by a car.

Statistics
Place: 209 out of 434
Avg (all users): 5.6194
Avg (commenters): 7.0000
Avg (participants): 5.5567
Avg (non-participants): 5.7838
Views since voting: 675
Views during voting: 207
Votes: 134
Comments: 3
Favorites: 0


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AuthorThread
06/09/2009 07:49:47 PM
Greetings from the Critique Club

This is my first CC comment, since I joined today after seeing a forum thread about it. I'm glad I got this one since you didn't get many comments yet. Hopefully it will be helpful to you.

The centered composition works here, though portrait mode may have worked better than landscape mode, especially if you could have gotten all of her in the shot. You got a very sharp image of the owl without having the appearance of over-sharpening. The fine hairs coming off the side emphasize the sharpness of the shot. She really stands out against the lovely soft green background. Your f2.8 really helped out here to make the bird the only subject of the picture. The coloring and white balance are excellent. I like how the shading in the background foliage (if not dodge and burn) gives a mild vignette effect.

You mentioned she is blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other, but in the picture I see hardly anything at all in the eye sockets. I'm assuming she still does have both eyeballs. Changing the lighting may have been difficult given the circumstances, but perhaps in postprocessing you could have selected the eyes and worked with them to bring out some of the faint detail, even if it's evidence of her blindness. This is an instance of when bracketing exposure and merging different shots may have also helped you.

The face of the owl appears very flat, though not knowing a Bard Owl it may be that flat. I'm wondering if you could have brought out some more depth by carefully doing selections and brightness/contrast adjustments on parts of the face, or with careful blending of the bracketed exposure mentioned above. Maybe some slight selective lightening of the dark under-feathers would have helped also.

Thank you for the brief history of Tommy. This is a very nice shot that ended up in the middle of the scoring range. I think with some minor changes you could have increased the score by a full point or more.

[ETA] I just looked at this on a different computer and monitor and it looks much different here. On the plus side I see much more definition in the eyes, better facial contours and I think the underbelly is a little lighter. On the minus side the lovely green background I saw before has much more of a yellow tint and I don't see as much definition in the feathers. I guess that goes to show how images can look very different depending on equipment. Now I have to figure out which is more accurate.

Message edited by author 2009-06-09 23:44:20.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
06/01/2009 10:51:16 PM
to me owls are so very majestic...love the shot
  Photographer found comment helpful.
06/01/2009 12:55:21 AM
great focus...A tighter/square crop would have been better
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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