Great Horned Owl

Textures and Tones

Last year, I tried to incorporate lessons learned from presentations in my general photography group. One of the sessions was on black and white photography for landscapes. I tried to incorporate these concepts to edit some bird pictures that had good tonal range. This photo of a Great Horned Owl on its nest in a tree cavity with two fledglings was one of the pictures that resulted. This photo in particular interested me to see the camouflage (textures, tones, patterns) of the owls – where do the owls end and the tree begin?

The picture was from a trip to Utah. Part of this involved going between National Parks. We stopped on a whim at Butch Cassidy’s boyhood home. This owl was in an old Cottonwood tree on the farmstead. This is cropped quite a bit as I tried to not go closer than when I first noticed the nest so as to not disturb them. They did watch me half-heartedly.