Owls

This picture would have been in my top 10 if not for the vignetting which I find very distracting. It draws my eye away from the bird. I am a great believer in less is more in a picture and the simplicity of this image and placement in the frame looking into all that spaces makes it very powerful and a picture that you immediately take notice of. The interesting looking perch adds an extra dimension the more you look at the shot. Simple is often best.

I think this is a Grass Owl – a relative of the Barn Owl. Positioning of the bird in the frame, wings on their down stroke giving a sense of power and the colours of the owl set against the background colour all go to make this for me a great picture. The photographer has managed a nice depth of field too so that the whole body and wings of the bird are in sharp focus which I fell really helps to give the image impact.

If you observe birds closely you will be aware many species have a character. Bringing that character out in an image is not easy but it has been done here beautifully. What makes this picture work is not just the fact we are focussing in on those mean killer eyes that stare back at us but because the head is at a slant so giving an even more sinister cartoonish effect to the owl's stare. Judicious cropping of an image can sometimes elevate a fairly ordinary picture into something much more striking, as in this case.

Lighting, complementary colours, a clean background, subject placement in the frame, all are factors that attracted me to this image. It has a subtle beauty and although we cannot see the owls surroundings the few wisps of grass and that autumnal / winter colour of rough grassland helps give a sense of place. I can imagine watching this bird floating moth-like in pursuit of voles on a winter's afternoon. The blurring of this owl's wing tips helps add a sense of movement too.

I love this picture as it makes me smile and sums up in many ways the character of owls. During the day most species sit motionless tucked away and when discovered often peer down suspiciously at their admirer. When I first looked at this picture it took me a few seconds to spot the bird in the top of the frame. The symmetry of the owls position both looking at the camera, the texture of the bark of the old tree, the green foliage adding balance in the bottom left of the frame are all factors that I feel make this worthy of the second spot and a sense that the photographer has really thought about the composition.

Wildlife photography is for me as much an art form as painting or sculpture or any other creative process and so I am always drawn to images that push the boundaries a little. This motion blur shot of a flying Barn Owl will not be to everyone's taste, judging pictures is so subjective but it immediately caught my eye and stood out as something very different to any of the other images entered. The fact that you can see the birds head and eye clearly and the ghost like trail of the wings I feel really helps set this picture off.

I chose in my final selection a number of images of owls' faces where their characters can be felt through a stare and those piercing eyes. Those pictures were all framed to emphasise that character. Here we have a picture where the owl has struck a great pose but the resulting image could have be made much more powerful by focussing on head beak and eyes and eliminating the lower portion of the body and more importantly eliminating the very distracting surrounding background. such as the orange blob in the bottom left of the frame.

A large number of images of captive owls in this competition could have been improved with a little more attention to detail. The photographer here has captured a Barn Owl in classic pose on a nice attractive perch, the dark bark contrasts with the bird beautifully all adding up to a striking shot – except for the visible jesses. The strap hanging from this owl could have been hidden around the back of the perch and perhaps if the bird had been shot at a slightly more oblique angle the ring on its leg may have been hidden by the wing.

Snowy Owls are birds of the open tundra and would never be encountered in a deciduous woodland, so I immediately eliminated this shot as it felt so out of context. Another species native to deciduous woodland photographed with this backdrop could have made for a really good image, the setting is very attractive. Forgetting this is a Snowy Owl for a moment other improvements could be made here, for example avoiding the tree directly behind the owl, the photographer could have moved slightly to the right to avoid this and eliminating the distracting branch that sticks out on the left. A slightly lower viewpoint would have given a bit more intimacy to the shot too.

This is an image that could so easily have been in the top 10 if its execution had been better. The positives are strong eye contact with the viewer, perfect wing positioning, it has that slightly heraldic pose. However it is let down by the bright out-of-focus tree trunks in the background of the image. Bright out-of-focus objects in a background are always likely to draw the viewer's eye away from the subject and here they fight with the attention you are trying to give to the bird. Dark out-of-focus objects tend to be far less distracting.

As an aperture of f2.8 was being used on this occasion a shallower depth of field would not have improved the background. Using a longer focal length lens would have helped a little however better positioning would have solved this. As this was a captive bird, I am assuming this could have been achieved.

I am a big fan of black and white imagery, that timeless look and the fact that once colour is stripped away in a picture the viewer is forced to concentrate far more on texture, pose and composition. There were not many portrait orientated images entered and even fewer black and white shots so this stood out. I like the expression on the face of the owl, an annoyed look! What makes it for me though is the pose with one foot lifted.

This close up portrait of a face of a Great Grey Owl is very striking and immediately grabs you as you peer into those yellow eyes. The picture gives an almost human quality to the owl, indeed the owl's expression helps convey the personality of the bird. It can be hard to capture these qualities from captive birds as they often look quite disinterested when looking at the camera but this bird looks nice and alert and is quite mesmerising when viewed for any length of time.

This image of a hunting Short-eared Owl caught my eye on a first look through the competition contenders. Nice positioning in the frame, great light, nice clean background and that eye contact with a classic owl stare meant the image had a lot going for it. Indeed this is another that could have been in my top 10 if only it had been sharp.

In the days of film I used to reckon on 1/1000 sec freezing just about any flying bird with the exception of very small species. Digital is less forgiving and now I routinely use 1/1600 or 1/2000 sec.