Grumpy Little Owl
Come on little fella, cheer up!
Come on little fella, cheer up!
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Nov, 2015Views
891
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Awards
Chatter Award
Top Shot Award 21
People's Choice in The Best of Birds Photo Challenge
Superb Composition
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
Peer Award
All Star
Magnificent Capture
Outstanding Creativity
Superior Skill
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Top Ranks
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 2Top 10 rank week 1Categories
avinashsrivastav
January 14, 2016
Wonderful capture & presentation. I like the details, clarity, colours & contrast
avinashsrivastav
January 14, 2016
Congratulations for winning people's choice award in Best of Birds Photo Challenge
Platinum
nandicmb
January 14, 2016
Congratulations on your People's Choice category win in Best of Birds Photo Challenge!
PRO+
jenschultz
January 14, 2016
Congrats on you Peoples Choice win in the best of birds challenge. Beautiful picture.
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
As with most photos, I suspect, the ones I treasure the most are those caught by chance - I had about 5 minutes to visit the birds of prey at my local county show before they all got packed away at the end of the day to return to their "homes". I only had time to see two of them and this grumpy little chap was one of them.Time
Owls in particular seem to convey such human emotions, I suppose because of the expressiveness of their eyes, but in this case, with his eyes almost frowning and squinting he gave such an impression of being generally fed up at the end of a long day that I just couldn't resist.Lighting
With birds in particular I always use a flash, even if it's only the built-in flash. I'm always amazed at the colours that we are hardly aware of in their feathers that only shine through under reflected light. In this case I always thought of Little Owls as a dull grey colour with maybe a bit of brown - what I particularly loved about this shot was all the other "hidden" colours - yellows, blues, a hint of green etc that I really only got to see when I returned home and reviewed my shots.Equipment
This was taken with my only camera, an ageing Canon 400D (Rebel Xti) with Canon 55-250 lens. The lens was incredible value but is one of the finest quality I have ever owned (Nikon or Canon) - the clarity, even in low light, makes it amazingly versatile not only when taking the photos, but allowing you to do so much more in post-processing whilst retaining the original quality.Inspiration
My "inspiration" for any photograph, even a landscape, comes as much from my imagination as what I see in front of the lens. I try to capture an emotion as much an an event. When I saw this bird I saw a character rather than just a thing or just a creature. I "saw" what it was thinking and feeling and that's what I wanted to convey.Editing
There is always a degree of post-processing in my photographs - it's the time I can allow myself to be creative and to turn a snapshot into a memory of how I felt when I saw a scene, rather than just a perfect reproduction of a scene. However, sometimes the subject is already all you need. In this case, with the sun setting, I was captivated by the hidden colours in what I thought was traditionally a grey bird, so I had to boost them a little in Photoshop to truly get that across. Some tidying up of the background to make it less distracting was about the only other work I did - we can thank nature for the rest!In my camera bag
I travel light. My camera body is a Canon 400D (Rebel Xti) - it's only 10MP but has been good enough to produce glossy magazine photos. My two lenses are the standard 18-55mm kit lens and my favourite lens ever - the Canon 55-250mm which I used for this. Years ago I had a huge kit bag of prime and zoom lenses but spent so much time swapping them around and preparing to take a photo that I missed the moment far too many times and ended up taking fewer and fewer photos. Now I keep it simple so I'm ready for any eventually - photography for me is about capturing a moment that we see by chance. Others may enjoy "creating" their moment in a studio, but for me I like to share something that has happened briefly, uniquely and by chance, so I have to be ready instantly.Feedback
Respect your subject and learn about it, particularly with nature and wildlife, and be patient. With wildlife in particular, observing behaviours first gives you a far better chance of predicting where the subject might be, when they might be there, for how long and what they will do. It also allows them to get used to you in their habitat. But always be ready! Set up your camera beforehand, think about your background, the lighting and composition and then wait. You may only get one chance but if you're ready you just might capture that brief second that will last for years as a memory.
