Critique requested

[AprilInA2]

Forgot to add information: Nikon D500, 500 PF, f5.6, 1/1000sec iso640

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[Tiago C]

Nice capture!

I would suggest a different edit. Either keep the subject exactly on center, or deliberately off-center and adjust black and white levels to increase contrast.

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[MangoYak]

I'd say over exposed. Metering isn't easy in conditions like this. You might have had trouble with any amount of exposure compensation. There's just too much white to deal with.

 

[Backdoor Arts]

Need to crop tighter. I'd keep it centered as it's not going anywhere, maybe crop vertically. And I'd try and isolate the owl. Use Subject selection in Photoshop or Lightroom/Camera Raw, invert it to get the snowy areas, and then pull back the highlights to try and reveal some details in the great wash of white that surrounds the bird. Then use the brush adjustment to add some texture to the owl itself. Nothing major, you just need to separate them a bit.

 

[jeffnles1]

I don't really like to mess with other people's photos too much since crop and the like is a matter of personal taste. With that said, since you asked I did play with it a little. What I did was boost the exposure just a touch, boosted the highlights a tiny bit, added a tiny bit of contrast and cropped on a 16X9 aspect ratio. I allowed the edge of the snowdrift on the right side of the frame to trail off to the lower right corner. I found that more pleasing and less abrupt than having it somewhere else on the frame. My attempt here was to make the snow and owl's white feathers look more white than gray. I always try to over expose a little in camera when shooting a snow scene because the camera's meter will try to make the snow gray if it is the predominant part of the image. I also took the liberty of putting a tiny dot of "catchlight" in the owl's eyes. Sometimes it helps them to look less like black holes.

Here are the results. You may like it or not, photography and art are such personal things that what suits one may be wrong for another.

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[JoPoV]

Forgot to add information: Nikon D500, 500 PF, f5.6, 1/1000sec iso640
View attachment 32151

Hi,

Do you shoot raw or jpg ?
Tried to tweak your jpg, but not enough info to do clean work.
If you look at post2, you can see weird not clean pattern in top left for example. Because jpg does not contain enough information for doing a clean job, and/or already contains compression artefacts which are revealed when tweaking.
I would suggest to center your owl. It's looking at you. It's a straight portrait. It's not looking right or left, which would have need to leave space in the direction of the gaze and there are no elements to balance, justify an off-center composition. And I would have cropped to have the owl more present. Trying vertical image could be nice too.
Here a little starting point which can't really go much further due to jpg format and not enough resolution in the provided file.

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If you have raw, I should be able to create a much more successful result. Raw retains lot of information lost in jpg. Here informations in high value (light tones), feathers, and more shades. But mostly feathers, head.
And those informations that are not visible first can be revealed in postprocess to give much more subtil effects and details.
If you have raw I thing you have a good starting point to create a very nice picture. D500 gives good raws, and your exposure seems right. Whites are white but not burned. Focus seems good. Ingredients are there, only remains to cook the dish and make this owl pops.