I came across this scene on my way back home after spending some time photographing birds in the Sri Jayawardenepura Sanctuary, which is literally part of the capital of Sri Lanka.
The story here is immense, I think. Firstly, the House Crow in this scene is not a hunter. It is a cleaner. We often see crows as an annoyance and a symbol of dirt, but their service to the ecosystem is vital. The immediate appearance of this scene, with the crow’s nictitating membrane covering the eye and giving it an eerie look, makes it seem as though it is viciously preying on an innocent squirrel. This highlights a common misunderstanding.
The second part of the story is the squirrel itself. It was not hunted by the crow. This was the aftermath of a roadkill.
On the technical side, I was working with very limited light. I wanted to freeze the scene while keeping both the bird and the squirrel sufficiently sharp. To achieve this, I stopped down slightly and used the minimum acceptable shutter speed, which forced me to push the ISO as far as I reasonably could. I then focused on the bird’s flanks, as this was the middle ground between the crow’s head and the squirrel. It almost worked. While the image is not pin-sharp as it would have been if I had focused directly on an eye, I am very happy with the result. Both subjects are sharp enough to be clearly understood and appreciated.
– Рейтинг фотографов по странам и городам строится на основе 3-х лучших фотографий автора и их относительной позиции в каждой отдельной номинации. Рейтинг в номинации "Мобильная фотография" учитывается в меньшей степени для формирования рейтинга. В списке по странам и городам показывается одна фотография автора с лучшим рейтингом.
– В списке опубликованы только работы которые прошли 2-й этап голосования.
– В рейтинге лучших фотографий учитывается только одна — самая сильная — работа от каждого автора. Даже если у фотографа опубликовано несколько работ, в расчёте позиции используется только одна, с наивысшим рейтингом. Поэтому порядок фотографий в списке может не совпадать с итоговым положением автора в рейтинге.
– The rating of photographers by countries and cities is based on the three best photos of the author and their relative position in each separate nomination. Rating in the nomination "Mobile Photography" is taken into account to a lesser extent for rating formation. The list by country and city shows one photo of the author with the best rating.
– Only those photos have been published in the list that passed the second stage of voting.
– Only one strongest photo from each author is counted in the Best Photos ranking. Even if a photographer has several published works, only the highest-rated one is used to calculate their ranking position. As a result, the order of photos in the list may not match the author's final ranking position.
