autofantasia's photos with the keyword: owl

For this week's Sunday Challenge , the theme for which was glass . A challenge that finally gave me an excuse to take some shots of this cute little owl. The wings, legs and head are metal, but the body is made from a single piece of orange glass. I tried him in various positions around the garden, but decided in the end to use this shot of him sat on the roof of our smallest garden shed, mainly because I liked how the light was illuminating the glass. Once I'd decided to go with this shot though I had to get busy with the cloning tool as the roof was covered in bird poo ... nothing to do with the owl I hasten to add! Please view on black for best effect.

As regular visitors to my photostream will know, I struggled greatly with last week's Sunday Challenge , which had the theme of high key . Thankfully, I found this week's challenge of low key much less stressful. And whereas last week I introduced you all to Gerald The Dinosaur, this week it's the turn of Harry The Owl who is one of three metal owls that make up an ornamental sculpture to be found in our back garden. He's the furthest to the right of the trio - hence him being called Harry ... the other two then are, as you may have guessed, called Tom and Dick. I took the shot outside after 10.00pm last night once it had got dark - heaven knows what the neighbours would have thought if they saw me. I had the camera on a tripod and for a change worked with manual settings throughout ... even the focus! As for the key light that was a small pocket torch that I had positioned to my right hand side behind a small board of MDF so as to stop any light spilling onto the foliage behind where I'd positioned Harry. Best of all as far as I'm concerned is that I've posted this pretty much as it came out of the camera. The only 'work' done on it was a slight crop and I 'dodged' the white in his eyes just a smidgen as I felt they were a little flat. So, there you go, not quite SOOC, but pretty damned close!

The theme this week for The Sunday Challenge was shoot a stranger and although street scenes were mentioned it didn't have to be taken there ... as long as you shot a stranger and it was taken outside then it would do. More often than not I like to take a new photo for the challenge, but this week I decided to look through my archives and find some previously 'unpublished' shots that might suit the topic. This particular one, was a shot I took during a display at the Birds of Prey Centre at Sion Hill Hall, North Yorkshire and although I decided not to use it as my main entry I still thought it worth uploading. For anyone who might be interested, the centre was set up to provide the public with a rare opportunity to see and enjoy these beautiful birds. You can find out more about it by following the link below: www.falconrycentre.co.uk/index.php