I love going back through my image files and find one that have I ignored for awhile, for some reason or another. This photo of a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk is one of those. When I took the original photo, the bird had just took off from atop a telephone pole. It is impossible to get a perfect composition at that time, and in this case, not only was the pole and wires in the image, I also clipped the wing of the bird.
For a long time the photo languished in my files, ignored because I was hesitant to publish the image. This photo was taken back in May of 2011 so it has been around a long time. Recently I decided that I could make a good presentation of it if I ignored the clipped wing and did a decent crop. Even then, ordinarily I would not have published it with the clipped wing, but after looking at it as an artist should, I felt it was just too good not to show. Here is the final result.
Photographing raptors, whether it be Ospreys, Hawks, or Owls; I love the challenge of shooting them in flight. They are such glorious images when in the air. Click on either of them to see an enlargement.
By the way, it was photographed using a very old Canon EOS 40D and 100-400mm lens. It doesn’t matter about the equipment as long as you know it’s limitations and how to use it.