![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/short-eared-owl-7868c-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"short-eared-owl-7868c-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nBecause of a processing conundrum I’ve never posted this photo before.<\/p>\n
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1\/1000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This is a male Short-eared Owl in Montana’s remote Centennial Valley. I’ve posted many photos of him in the past as he was delivering voles to his youngsters in the nest. I know his sex in part because only males provide food to the nestlings. The photo was taken in difficult low light conditions for a flight shot so his wings are soft due to issues with depth of field\/shutter speed in such low light. Even the rest of the bird is slightly less than tack sharp.<\/p>\n Even though I think photos of owls in flight, particularly with prey, are always at a premium I’ve never published the photo in the past because of difficulties with composition and processing. This is all the room I have on the right side of the frame so this version of the image has a squarish 4×5 aspect ratio and even so the owl is nearly centered in the frame, both of which are less than ideal compositionally.<\/p>\n There’s a “solution” to the problem but it requires me to stray into territory I try to avoid whenever possible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Adding canvas on the right allows me to achieve a more visually pleasing (at least for my sensibilities) 5×7 aspect ratio and it gives the owl more room on the right to “fly into” which I prefer. In this version the owl is a little smaller in the frame but compositionally I like it better.<\/p>\n But there’s nothing “natural” about that last inch of added canvas on the right so this nature photographer doesn’t like to do it. I realize that many photographers have no problem doing so but for me adding any unnatural elements to my photos is a slippery slope that can lead to ethical mischief.<\/p>\n Where do we draw the line? If it’s OK to add canvas is it also OK to add a catch light in the eye that isn’t really there? To swap out a boring homogenous sky background with a more interesting one with blue sky and fluffy white clouds? To remove (clone out) an annoying photobombing coot in the background or anything else that’s distracting? The list is endless and some “nature” photographers do them all at the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n For me the answer to the last three questions is clearly “no” so why would it be OK to add canvas and not the others? In my view disclosing such techniques to our viewers mitigates the problem to some degree but not completely.<\/p>\n It’s the epitome of both a “slippery slope” and a “conundrum”.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PS – On a completely unrelated note I learned something while writing this post. My lesson originated from my repeated use of “OK” in my text. In short I learned that “It’s not OK to write ok”.\u00a0 I found the long explanation at a website called “Lifehacker.”<\/p>\n “It’s very simple: you have two choices if you want to say something is okay. You can spell out the word in full (okay) or you can use capital letters (OK). What’s unacceptable is to write “ok” in lower case.<\/em><\/p>\n The main reason for this is pronunciation. The word “ok” on its own would, by the standards of regular English, be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cock’. Using ‘okay or OK’ make it clear what you’re supposed (trying) to say. Yes, I know, there are countless examples of English words whose spelling gives no clue whatsoever as to how to pronounce them, but that’s all the more reason not to add to their number.<\/em><\/p>\n While we no longer think of it as an acronym, OK did originate that way: it was an abbreviation for ‘orl korrect’, itself a jokey misspelling used in the US back in the nineteenth century. The joke is long and many of us favour the spelt-out version, but it’s still OK to use the acronym if you wish.”<\/em><\/p>\n If you really want the lower case version, put fullstops in it (‘o.k.’). Accuracy matters.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/short-eared-owl-7868c-canvas-added-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"short-eared-owl-7868c-canvas-added-ron-dudley\\"")
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