Barn Owl Portrait

[Glenn Conlan]

I was driving down one of the backroads of Dave Salem and mine favorite wildlife refuge and I noticed something in the distant sitting on one of the road signs. I approached slowly and could see it was a barn owl, which I had never photographed before. It was a very dreary morning and the best light was coming from the wrong side for me to shoot it from my car. I started to take shots of it despite my position from the side and it was apparently sleeping so I inched my car forward to get closer and it never became bothered by my approach. The light direction was not to much of a factor and I got many full frame side profile shots as it occasionally looked in my direction. I realized that the raptor could care less of my close proximity so I got out of my car opened up the back of my car and got my tripod out and mounted my camera. I walked slowly to get a front shot of the owl and set up my tripod mounted camera getting this full frame shot in landscape mode and cropped it to a vertical. I thought it may be sick but it eventually flew off in a very normal fashion. All comments appreciated

D4 600mm w 1.4 tc
1/500 sec
ISO 1250
Manual
Pattern meter mode

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Fantastic portrait, Glenn. Grumpy pose, beautiful pink sky bg and terrific IQ. Oh man, I love this!

[Karl Egressy]

Excellent image, Glenn.

[dankearl]

Nice portrait, Glenn.
Weathered post is not a bad perch and the attractive SoCal Bg you guys have.
It appears a tad oversharp?

[keith mitchell]

Glen congrats on getting a bird to stay there for you, it is certainly a grumpy pose with good colours and a nice Bg,would be thrilled to have this great looking image.

[David Salem]

Very nice Glenn. I really like the sleepy pose and the beautiful colorful feathers of this species. The perch is pretty darn good for us :) Nice work.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Glenn, good choice of crop to suit the pose. Im fine with the perch, and love the colour of the BG. Are their faces not more whiter?

[MohsenVahedipour]

Excellent portrait. I like the light, great IQ & composition. TFS

[arash_hazeghi]

pretty cool Glenn! nice BG and pose. did he open his eyes at all? good details btw, I'd dial back post sharpening a tad

TFS hope you're doing. it's really dry and warm up here, no signs of raptors in the area


best

Arash

[Frank Schauf]

Beautiful portrait, great details, a great shot.

[gail bisson]

Oooh, this is nice.
I would love to see this owl in real life.
Good comp and color palette. Agree the wing feathers appear a bit oversharpened but otherwise it looks awesome.
Gail