Fairlie Moor Skull Near Sunset

This poor sheep was probably a victim of the harsh winter high on Fairlie Moor, but it did leave behind a magnificent piece of natural sculpture for us. I knew I would have trouble balancing the brightness of the soon-to-set sun and the shade side of the skull, so I set my Nikon D300s to RAW which allowed maximum amount of computer processing. It also allowed me to enhance the almost monochrome and - lets face it, grim - foreground as a contrast to the summer colours of the moor above the Firth of Clyde with the islands of Wee Cumbrae and Arran which I threw out of focus by using a fast shutter speed to limit the depth of field on my 10mm lens, isolating the skull.