Hidden (Long-Eared Owl)

Gallery: AvianPosted March 30, 2015112 views6 comments

Hi all! Here's another from Jenaya, Josiah and my recent trip to the west coast for owls. I think I mentioned before that we saw 19 owls of 6 species (which was awesome!), though they didn't all cooperate exactly as we might have wished.

Would you believe we found FIVE long-eared owls deep in the branches of this tree? Crazy...way outside the norm from my experience anyway! our excitement of finally having one of our most sought-after species in front of us was countered quickly by challenging light and subjects that were just absolutely buried.

After about 30-40mins of work trying one angle after another (made more complicated by multiple subjects, actually), I decided to not to fight nature but go with it--this is, after all, a part of long-eared life and behavior. So I shifted from trying to find the impossible somewhat-clear view of the owls to trying to capture their propensity to disappear into the branches, while still ending up with a decent image of the owl itself.

In this frame, I was not only shooting through the outside branches of the tree, but also chose to shoot through the vegetation in front of me.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback on two items:

(1) does this work for you (please view LARGER version)?
(2) colour or B&W (below)?

Wild long-eared owl photographed in early light with strong shadow and shade areas...not baited, lured, called-in or harassed in any way.

Nikon D600
Nikkor AF-S 500mm f/4D IF-ED
ISO 400
1/3200sec @ f/5.6
-2.0 EV
Tripod mounted

Adjustments to colour balance, brightness and contrast, light dodging on owl's left side of face (nothing done to the dominant eye/side).

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by John Launstein on March 30, 2015 at 5:40 AM

And here's the B&W version...would love to know which you think is the stronger / more appealing. Many thanks in advance!

Registered on April 5, 2011, 223 Posts, 1193 Comments

Comment posted by Hans Overduin on March 30, 2015 at 6:40 AM

My first reaction is that I like the overall atmosphere, indeed showing the typical hiding of the species. When looking longer, I wonder what you could have done to avoid the ligher OOF parts of the branches, since they are the only thing I wouldn't like to present. Maybe you could try and darken the lightest patches a little. The eye, the hiding are awesome - so the image is definitely a keeper. In this case I think I would prefer color over B&W... Cheers, Hans

Registered on August 31, 2011, 491 Posts, 3807 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on March 30, 2015 at 10:31 AM

Well John, you are certainly out there pushing the envelope!! Good for you.

I prefer the color version. I wondered what it would look like with a much darker presentation for most of the image but leaving the owl at the presented luminance. Here's a crack at that concept.

Very mysterious

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on March 30, 2015 at 1:54 PM

I really like this, John. The longer you look at it the more the owl appears out of the foliage. I do wish you'd framed it just a bit further into the frame as the composition feels just a bit lopsided to me. You could try chopping a bit off the left side if you feel like it and see how it looks that way. I prefer the color to the b&W-hate to lose that wonderful yellow eye.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Wayne Jones on March 30, 2015 at 6:20 PM

I think this is a wonderful image, full of mystery as well as telling the story of this owl and how it lives.
I like the color version just a bit more that the B&W, but the B&W is a VERY strong image, and I certainly would not throw it out!
Both are keepers for sure.

Registered on April 18, 2007, 953 Posts, 6435 Comments

Comment posted by John Launstein on March 30, 2015 at 8:01 PM

Thank you all for the comments and feedback! I ended up about where it sounds most of you have, liking both but with a slight preference for the colour.

Keith, I love your version. I actually had played with some simple darkening similar to this as I was attracted to the same concept, but in the end went with what I had posted ONLY because it was more faithful to the conditions and RAW file. It is, after all, a morning daylight image. The owl was on the shaded side of the the tree with just a slice of sunlight cutting in and (thankfully) hitting his eye, so I felt the darker version might be pushing it a bit in terms of editorial accuracy. For commercial purposes or a print, I prefer the darker hands down. I'll have to give this some thought...thanks for the inspiration!

Registered on April 5, 2011, 223 Posts, 1193 Comments