{"id":103385,"date":"2021-10-15T05:50:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T11:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=103385"},"modified":"2021-10-15T06:57:53","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T12:57:53","slug":"barn-owl-being-chased-by-his-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/15\/barn-owl-being-chased-by-his-shadow\/","title":{"rendered":"Barn Owl Being Chased By His Shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"

But a different composition of the same photo drastically changes the viewer’s perception.<\/p>\n

Note: I posted one of these versions of this photo eight years ago but when I stumbled across it again last night my perception of the image changed significantly.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This Barn Owl at Farmington Bay WMA had dived into the snow after a vole and missed. ‘He’ sat on the surface of the snow for a few moments before taking off again and in this photo I caught him soon after liftoff.<\/p>\n

We see the owl and his shadow on the snow which almost appears to be chasing him. The exploding snow at the right edge of the frame was disturbed during his launch. The position of his left wing in front of his face isn’t ideal but in this case I can live with it.<\/p>\n

Especially when I see a different composition of the same photo.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In this full frame (uncropped) version of the same image my perspective of the photo changes drastically. Now we see three versions of the owl – his shadow on the snow, the impression on the snow he made when he took off and the owl itself.<\/p>\n

And then there’s the outline of the larger shadow on the right. I see a profile of a human face in that shadow. I think it strongly resembles one of the iconic monolithic statues called moai on Easter Island<\/a><\/span><\/span>. For me that resemblance is so strong it’s almost like the shadow is the primary subject of the photo, drawing my eye away from the owl.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether that ambiguity is a strength or a weakness is debatable but for me it only makes the image more interesting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ron\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But a different composition of the same photo drastically changes the viewer’s perception.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[344,334,2782],"tags":[45,5977,1008,146,5939,5978,286,2738,309,311],"class_list":["post-103385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barn-owls","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-barn-owl","tag-easter-island-statues","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-flight","tag-interesting-shadows","tag-moai","tag-snow","tag-takeoff","tag-tyto-alba","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/barn-owl-2860-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-qTv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103385"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103401,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103385\/revisions\/103401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}