This is a "portrait" of an eagle that I photographed for my good friend who is a taxidermist.  Since I can't use it for the portrait project, I thought I'd at least put him up on the blog.

Apparently when an eagle is found dead, there is a long list of Native Americans waiting to be able to own that bird. (As you know, even having an eagle feather in your possession is a jail-waiting offense). This particular eagle landed on an electrical line and you could even see that the bottom of his feet were black.

My friend is a huge bird lover and getting the chance to mount this eagle was a highlight for him. He asked me to take it's picture before the owner comes to pick him up.

I set up this shot in a corner of his basement taxidermy studio.  The set consists of a black backdrop, and one Canon Speedlight that was bounced into a reflecting umbrella. In need of a fill card to bounce some light into the left side of the bird, I grabbed the lid of a styrofoam cooler that he had lying around and used that. He got a huge kick out of my "ingenuity". I took about 50 shots and the whole thing took 75 minutes.