Uploads from gdelargy, tagged glamiscastle

"You lookin' at me?"

nobody@flickr.com (gdelargy) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:17:18 -0700

gdelargy posted a photo:

I imagine small rodents across Scotland have frequent nightmares about meeting this stare.

Self portrait in hawk's eye

nobody@flickr.com (gdelargy) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:17:25 -0700

gdelargy posted a photo:

A close-up of this hawk, quite heavily cropped from the untouched original so you can better see the photographer reflected in its pupil. Accidental, but very pleasing once I noticed. The yellow iris does a grand job of pulling your attention to it as well.

As some of those very nice posters have commented below, the largest version is the best.

From the feedback I've had, I can safely say this is my most popular shot on Flickr. More favorites, more views, more group invites, and more "Best of..." pool awards than any other in my photostream. Thanks, all.

Hawkeye

nobody@flickr.com (gdelargy) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:57:59 -0800

gdelargy posted a photo:

One of my personal favourites is this picture of a hawk, mostly 'cos you can see me clearly reflected in its pupil. However, as I was going back through my older images tonight, I came across this, the original image from which the crop had been created, and I realised that while it's maybe not quite as overtly striking, it's still OK for an untouched, straight-from-the-camera shot.

By comparison, the old cropped version has been slightly sharpened, and the contrast in the pupil upped verrrrry slightly to make my silhouette clearer. Still, you can see from this that I didn't need to do much; it's nicely sharp anyway, and the background blur is pleasantly soft. Maybe the composition is a bit pedestrian (the bird's eye looks almost dead centre to me), but what the heck, I like it, so it's going on display.

And you can still see me reflected in its pupil, hehehe...

Tawny eagle close-up

nobody@flickr.com (gdelargy) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 09:01:22 -0700

gdelargy posted a photo:

Again, the photographer's been captured in the bird's eye, but the less dramatic colour of its iris, and the marginally more interesting plumage, means it's less the focus of the photo than the previous one.

I'm a bit disappointed in myself. Sure the detail's good, but that's all down to the camera and lens. I took far too many head'n'shoulders style vignettes of these birds that day, and there was no particular dynamism to them; they were all very static and same-y. Meh, I'll just need to practice a bit more.

Foxhound enjoying a wee gambol

nobody@flickr.com (gdelargy) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:00:05 -0700

gdelargy posted a photo:

One of the slightly iffier displays at the huntin', shooting' 'n' fishin' festival at Glamis that day was a mock fox hunt, where a hunt leader on horseback trotted round the main enclosure, tooting his wee horn to keep his dogs in "formation". All the while the commentator was intoning what a valuable service it was to the community and how those pesky urban dwellers didn't know squat, etc etc. Preaching to the converted at this particular show, methinks.

I won't bother having a pro/con hunting debate here, but beforehand there was a wee free-for-all where folks could climb into the ring and mingle with the dogs who were galloping around and having a grand time.

Great grey owl taking a drink

nobody@flickr.com (gdelargy) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:46:02 -0700

gdelargy posted a photo:

A 12-week old great grey owl hops from its perch to its drinking bowl, and is captured flapping itself into a slightly odd pose.

The exotic goth falconer and her avian sweetheart

nobody@flickr.com (gdelargy) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:59:52 -0700

gdelargy posted a photo:

There were a couple of falconry exhibits at the Scottish Countryside Festival, held at Glamis Castle last weekend. With one of them, Ridgeside Falconry, the father was in the main area doing public demos, while his daughter stayed behind to look after their other birds.

It was mostly quite crowded, except when I first arrived and there were only 5-6 others surrounding their enclosure. The girl, who had the black painted fingernails and dark, overhanging hair of a goth, was being very affectionate with this hawk during the brief respite in their day, stroking and kissing it to keep it relaxed.

I envisioned her as a mysterious, icy-but-inwardly-passionate schoolgirl, who simultaneously beguiled and terrified her male classmates. They all desperately pined for her, but no-one would ever ask for a date because of a long-established playground rumour: that potential suitors would be attacked by a flock of vicious avian predators and have their eyes pecked out. Ehhh, wrong; she was perfectly friendly and helpful, even asking if I wanted her to coax the bird into spreading its wings for some photos.

Unfortunately, none of the resulting shots were as fascinating as the scenes I missed, conveying the tender relationship between keeper and bird ~ this is as close as I managed.

Hawk (mostly mono)

nobody@flickr.com (gdelargy) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:17:22 -0700

gdelargy posted a photo:

I've been ambivalent about isolating colour like this in the past -- I think it's an extremely overused technique -- but gave it a shot for this one. The bird's plumage was a kind of grey anyway, and the background was a dull, nondescript green, while the bird's eye was a vivid yellow (see here).

Worked out OK... I might try this again in future.

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