From Benjamin Williamson
This encounter was so incredible.
I was chasing sunset light on Bailey Island when this barred owl swooped down across the road in front of me. I looked to see where it went, and noticed it had landed in a tree right next to the road. I quickly reached behind me and grabbed a telephoto lens. From where I was sitting, the background was made up of distracting branches across a boring blue sky, but when I stood up on my console and poked out of the moonroof, I was able to get this fantastic dark background, right on eye level with the owl.
The sunset I was chasing illuminated the bird marvelously, and we had one of those moments where there was real connection. I'm sure it was thinking, what in the world is this person doing growing out of the top of a car. Anyways, this is one of my all-time favorites and I just discovered that I had this vertical version of the otherwise well-known horizontal image taken just before this and shared widely when I made it back in 2016.
