Peanut

After such a long wait, festival fever has come and gone, and we are back to mundane Monday. Each year, our town has a 3-day festival on the playing fields. The first day consists of a child’s picnic and treasure hunt, the second sees the field lined with stalls and entertainment, the final day featuring a range of sporting events, such as cricket and football.

I feel that before writing about my photo, I should first introduce the subject. This is Peanut, a 2-year-old eagle owl, no taller than 7 inches. A complete poser, and possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever photographed! I met peanut while covering a falconry display in the main arena. I was taking photos from inside the arena, so I probably should have foreseen meeting someone new!! While taking part in the display, Peanut decided it was time for a well-earned rest, and landed no more than 2 feet away from me! I used my telephoto lens as this was what I already had on the camera, but it worked well as I could get closer, and blur the background more.

Later, having packed up and made the mistake of sitting down, I decided to review my photos. I had forgotten what a lucky shot I had gotten, so this image bought a smile to my face. I used the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop to select Peanut, then inverted the selection in order to work with the background. I tried reducing the brightness, but it made the image look fake, as the white balance was different. Instead, I decided to de-saturate the background, which I thought worked well. I then increased the contrast and darkened the highlights of the entire image. Finally, I increased the hue and saturation to make Peanut stand out more against the grey background.

I managed to capture this shot more by luck than skill, but I am really pleased with both the composition and the final image. I love festival weekend; I can’t believe it’s over already! Expect some more falconry photos over the coming days.

Bex

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