Used flash to light the bird against the sun in background.
Post challenge-----
Here's the story behind this shot.
I was weeding in my yard and came upon a very freshly dead (cause unknown) but beautiful green-tailed towhee. Kudos to vtruan for identifying the bird correctly after seeing only its back end. Naturally, I immediately did what all good DPCers would do given the ultimate compliant model: I stopped weeding and started shooting. 300 some-odd shots later, having kept two of the current challenges in mind, I thought I had some workable frames. (See also )
Quite contrary to some of the comments on this shot, this is NOT a "photoshop composition" (which would have been illegal in a Basic challenge anyway, and my Photoshop skills aren't good enough to composite two dissimilar shots). In fact, I did only a little postprocessing on the shot, mostly cropping, a .04 increase in contrast, and a .19 decrease in brightness, with just a touch of highlight/shadow.
I held the bird close to the tripod-mounted camera, with the sunset in the background (yes, it's a real sunset, not a photo of a sunset), and lit the bird with the on-board flash. This shot was the next-to-last one taken; the sun set behind the mountains right afterward, so the backlight was then gone.
For the disbelievers among you, here's an outtake , straight from camera (except for downsizing & save for web to upload to DPC; no editing or cropping done to it). The light blue objects are my fingers clad in vinyl gardening gloves, holding the bird right in front of the camera.
It's disheartening to realize that so many people vote a photo down based on faulty assumptions on their part.
Statistics
Place: 36 out of 161 Avg (all users): 5.9820 Avg (commenters): 5.4118 Avg (participants): 5.4792 Avg (non-participants): 6.1207 Views since voting: 1380 Views during voting: 429 Votes: 222 Comments: 20 Favorites: 1 (view)
Quiche - thanks for providing the set-up details for this. I am always interested in discovering how a photographer went about achieving a shot that has intrigued me, and this one certainly did! I am glad that it was taken in the field, rather than a studio - it was only after I had viewed a few times that I began to wonder, hence the addition to my comment during voting.
Oh, it's that budgie again, isn't it? I think I liked the Story shot better in composition and the way the sun illuminated the claws. I think this one might be better cropped tighter; the tail isn't adding much IMO.
A stuffed bird? A really cool idea for a photo, but the silhouetted background isn't really a strong enough feature to do the photo full justice, I feel. Lighting on the bird is good - flash, I take it, although it has resulted in a rather super-imposed feel.
Revisiting this I wonder if the photo as presented was shot outside in its etirity, or if the landscape background is a pre-taken photo backdrop?
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