One purpose of a “365 day photography project” is to get oneself out of your “comfort zone” and try new things with your camera. Thus, I decided to greet the new year on the first day of 2015 with a challenging assignment: Photograph a snowy owl at night without the use of a flash. The initial difficult part of this effort is one must find an owl. Although the moon was very near full, and providing lots of light, in reality the night is still quite dark. Thankfully, during the over the past few weeks I have learned the favorite hunting perches of some snowy owls. Thus with a bit of luck and pre-work I actually found two snowy owls. One bird was kind enough to pose for having its portrait taken in the moonlight. An additional benefit to this photo-opp site was a flood light which was about 40 yards away from the owl, and provided light in addition to the moon.

• View this project’s Flickr photo stream. (click upon images to view at full size / resolution)

Lord of the Night (owls)!

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Like any good boy scout I was prepared for failure in my snowy owl night photography quest. Thus, I had a “bird in reserve” which I had photographed just before sundown … this bluejay. After all, on day #343 I would not have wanted to break my year long string of bird photos should I had not been able to find an owl … a distinct possibility!

Bird in Reserve Blue Jay