A new year

From Photo of the day 2011

So this one takes the "official" photo of the day title. And to think I wasn't going to take the shot but for prompting from my friend. A vivid sunset taken from my friends helicopter hangar after we got back in from flying. I had another with the whole helicopter in the shot but liked how the main blade in this one led one's eye into the sunset rather than out of it. I played with the fill light a tad to bring out a bit more of the sky, which lead me to just touch up the shadows to hide the pixeling that shows up in barely exposed kinds of shadows.

From Photo of the day 2011

And this takes second place. My friend and I flew his gyrfalcon, Tula, before we took off flying in the helicopter before dark. She is sitting on her lure (fake duck) which she just piled out of the sky for. I really like her posture and the exposure was just right so that her back was visible without burning the sunlit breast feathers. I took some with the sun behind me but the grass in the background and the harsher shadows were more distracting. I could easily print this off to paint from - who knows, I might. This shot is straight from the camera.