Gabriel.Lascu's photostream  

NOTE: I didn't photoshop the bird in the shot but added the decorations to the existing one.

I present you the full grown up baby of the bald eagle family, sick of taking all the bullying from the the crows and starlings flying around, pooping on his nest. He's hoping that very soon he'll be able to go out there kicking some butt, showhing the world who the real king is.
The junior is now ready to take the plunge and try his very first flight, just to make his parents proud.
Wish him luck !

I've decided to get rid of the beautiful blue sky in this shot and eliminated it right inside the raw file. I then added a discrete gradient on the base, for visual balance. I've only very slightly pushed the curves, to make sure its head preserves the right amount of light.

Note: current shot is a heavy crop, only printable up to 30cm in high resolution. I think I didn't have the extender at the time or if I did, I might have been in a rush to capture the moment ;-)

Never pick on a baby-girl with a billiard ball in her hand ... she could take it seriously ;-)

This is one my favorite candid portraits, shot without flash with my old 50D w. 50mm almost wide open @ f/2.2 and 3200iso using the available interior ambient light (a mix of incandescent, and colored lights). I have applied a slight radial blur to help focusing the attention on the subject, slight noise reduction and color correction.
Many of you might prefer seeing birds in my photo stream, therefore I don't really expect too many comments.

That's fine with me, but be aware that the cute little baby girl might throw that ball on you if you ignore her ;-)))

Here's the long story short (well, as short as possible):
I was completely stuck in traffic that night, which is one of my least favorites activities. It was pitch dark. On my left, in between fences and trees I saw this modern cement plant shining it's lights almost like a 3 stars Casino in Las Vegas ;-) ...not quite...haven't been to Vegas in years. Maybe I should do it again...

I've suddenly decided to pull away from the infinite lane of cars and parked in a private company's land. The security guy showed up and I've kindly asked permission to do stuff in the dark ;-) on their property ;-) He's warned me about a 10m deep whole, which I was supposed to avoid and has joined me to the spot to make sure I don't chose to spend the night inside the deep hole... The entire place was full of mud. In fact I much preferred the feel of clay mud versus the claustrophobic traffic. It was too late to change my mind anyway. Once I start something...I usually don't give up.

I must have spent there some time, until the cold wind made its way under my clothes and the traffic got better.
For this shot I took 3 exposures to be able to pull details in the very dark areas (like the mud ;-). I've then processed them in Photoshop. One little detail for the scrutinizing eyes: all I've added were the birds, just to let you complain about ;-)

I truly hope you'll going to enjoy this photo.
Instead of focusing my comments on how difficult it was for me to take this shot and how dangerous the circumstances were...blah blah, I rather prefer focusing on a few technical aspects which might help others take a better picture next time:
This shot is far from perfect...I must admit (in fact I've lost the perfect shot of my life last weekend, but hey..."C'est la vie" in French). There's always something new we learn every time we do a mistake, don't we? I still chose to keep my shot's EXIF metadata available for everyone to see and wonder about...for how long...I don't know. Many folks decided to not display that anymore for various reasons and I respect that. If you take a quick pick on my camera info you'll probably see how naive I must have been taking the chance to shooting this @ 100 ISO. Crazy!
I wouldn't advise anyone to even try that in these circumstances.
The light underneath the subject was poor and the quick test of shutter speed told me I wasn't prepared for any kind of unexpected moves of the bird. I must admit taking that risk sometimes, while the adrenaline rush is high. While I still consider this a big mistake, chances one takes are obvious: one either gets a clean, "low noise" shot of the "stand still" bird or takes a high risk of ruining a marvelous shot in case the bird suddenly decides to move (or fly). Here's the result of the risk I personally took. The low ISO gave me the chance to recover details in the shadowy areas...luckily the eagle didn't move fast enough to ruin my shot.
Birding is all about taking chances and...quick decisions.

EXTRA NOTE: if I ever post my photos to any kind of groups, I'd kindly appreciate if folks will take take a few more seconds and slap a quick personal comment on top of the "copy & paste" award. I try to do the same as much as my personal time allows me to.

I don't have enough words to thank all my friends who have followed my posts constantly, regardless.
Thank you wholeheartedly !