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Of the two barred owl photos that you currently have posted for critique, this is my favorite. The soft lighting is beautiful, and the  pose is very effective. The depth of field you chose is perfect for highlighting the owl while letting us understand the owl’s context. I wonder if it might be useful to crop just a little from the bottom to make the image a bit less top-heavy (most the dark tones are above the centerline), but that’d need some experimenting. I can see that the current crop preserves the graceful spray of leaves at the bottom, and a tighter crop would do damage here. Alternatively, if those leaves were a bit more distinct in tone from the background leaves, that might be all that’s needed to give a balancing visual weight to the bottom of the frame. It might be useful to darken the bright patch in the lower left corner slightly so it doesn’t draw attention to the corner—that might also help the vertical balance. Anyway, I like this image a lot.

Thanks!