Jeanne Hoadley Photography – Page 73

Northern Flicker

I hadn’t been out of the car five minutes before this Northern Flicker landed on a branch near me. I never even knew flicker’s existed before I got into bird photography but lately I have been seeing them everywhere.

In post processing I did a lot of work to tone down the shadow on the side and bottom of the bird though I am still not completely happy with it. I also edited out all the branches in the lower right hand corner to lose distractions and create some negative space. The the usual treatment in Color Efex Pro: a little detail, a little saturation and some darkening of the edges to highlight the bird.

Mt. Shasta

Even when the birds are making themselves scarce it is worth a trip to Tule Lake just to see the beautiful views of Mt. Shasta. In this image I was experimenting with Topaz adjust and found the vibrance preset did a good job of cutting through the haze. I also added some saturation and sharpening and added a border, which may have been a mistake as it crowds the top of the mountain a little.

American Avocet

I spent three days in the Klamath Basin this week and thought I might come home virtually empty handed, at least in terms of new and interesting birds. In the last hour of the last day I decided to stop at the wildlife viewing kiosk at Tule Lake and there I found one American Avocet, two Black Necked Stilts, three long billed dowitchers, and three killdeer. Proving once again that persistence pays off.

In post processing I did most of the usual tricks, ie detail, saturation and darkening the edges. I also did alot of spot healing and content aware fill in the upper part of the water to remove distracting junk from the water. Not sure I went far enough with that. I’m also wondering if this should have been a vertical. Always room for improvement.

Cone Flower

Somehow it got to be Saturday and I hadn’t been out to shoot all week. So I ran down to North Mountain Park where the cone flowers are looking pretty good in spite of the drought. This was shot at f2.8 with a macro lens and I like the shallow depth of field but did add back some detail in post processing. It came out so bright I didn’t need to add any saturation for once though.

Eagle

I can’t say this is the best image I shot this week but it did seem most appropriate to the holiday. This is the first eagle I’ve seen at Tule Lake since early March. So I guess it is true that there are some year round residents.

In post processing I added some detail and saturation and a spotlight on the bird. I have just started using Topaz deNoise which gives a nice smooth look but also requires some extra sharpening in Photoshop at the end.

Lilies

I found these lilies blooming at Shore Acres State Park near Charleston. The Gardens are what remains of the estate of timber baron L.J. Simpson. This was taken hand held as I was playing chauffeur for my Mother and could not take the time I would have liked for photography. But the image stabilization worked well. In post processing I first adjusted the exposure a little using levels. Then I edited out another partial lily in the upper left hand corner using a fill with color selected from the left. ( I tried content-aware fill but it wanted to put another lily there.) I then took it into Color Efex Pro where I added detail, a little saturation and used darken lighten center to put emphasis on the top flower. Finally back in photo shop I added a smart sharpen filter.

Young Burrowing Owls

I was privileged to spend a couple of hours watching this burrowing owl family last Sunday evening near Burns, Oregon. The result was over 300 images which after editing for composition and sharpness left about 150 keepers. So, it was hard to choose but I liked this shot for having 5 of the six young owls in it with no weeds in their faces and all with a little different expression and posture.

In post processing I cropped a little to emphasize the owls and added a little sharpening, a little saturation and a little warmth. I then darkened the corners and borders and lightened the birds faces ever so slightly.

Western Meadowlark

I’m running late with last week’s image of the week as I have been very busy with a three day workshop on bird photography in Harney County. I caught this Western Meadowlark on Saturday but stay tuned for next week because there were some awesome birds on Sunday and Monday.

In post processing I cropped a little for composition, added a little detail and saturation and just a slight highlight on the bird to bring him out.

Mallard

Truth be told I did not shoot one photograph this week. I had to make getting out from under the chaos of moving a priority. Sadly, the job is still not done but significant progress has been made. I reached back to my last trip to North Mountain Park for this Mallard portrait. Sometimes we overlook the beauty of a bird that seems commonplace. I’ve seen the iridescent feathers on a Mallard’s head go purple in the right light.

I did my standard post processing, detail, saturation, highlighting the subject. Then added some sharpening. I’m looking forward to a trip to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Southeast Oregon next week so hope to have lots more birds to share soon.

Red Poppy

I went looking for birds at North Mountain Park and instead found a beautiful display of red poppies. Most of them were past prime but this one by the house looked pretty good. I had the telephoto lens on for the birds so I had to set up 10 feet away to get this shot. the background was kind of washed out so I added a green texture and blended it to get what I thought was just the right look for the background.