Backlit Tawny Owl (C)

Good evening everyone. This image of a Tawny Owl was taken one lovely evening, last August at The Barn Owl Centre in Gloucester, In the company of some good friends, Mark Davies and Andy Astbury among them. This was one of the last images of the day, all C&C's most welcome. Enjoy you're evening.
Paul.

Canon 50D, Sigma 150-500mm lens.

Hi Paul

Owls nice and sharp and well exposed

For me its a bit too far over to the left but no big deal

Agree with Ian's comment and would maybe try to clone out the lights at the top but a nice image nonetheless

Hi Paul - it was a bit of a rush to get Willow round here for the sunset wasn't it

Agree with Ian - however if the bird had been looking straight at you its position in the frame would be just about right.

I think you could afford to lift the black level and pull the midtones back slightly - go Image>Adjust>Levels and lift the blacks to 8, drop the mids to 0.94, then come down to Output and drop the white slider to 249.

Just adds a little 'crunch' to the colours

Nice shot ( I won't say I can see where you've been cloning the jesses out ).

Lovely portrait Paul, the owl could do with going a little over to our right giving a little more space for the owl to look into ,great detail and your images have come on in leaps and bounds from 'photo answers' days,well done

Thanks very much for the advice Andy. I've made the adjustments, plus made the cloning less obvious(I think).

All views and comments greatly appreciated!