Welcome to the Artists’ Studio

An owl perches on a large granite boulder in McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Arizona on January 21, 2023. Original: _Z722802.NEF

I dubbed this mushroom The Artists’ Studio when I realized a prolific pair of artists was painting the rock face. Bear and I had seen both owls on our walk earlier in the afternoon but I came back out with my biggest telephoto hoping for a close-up near sunset and only saw the one. I got those pictures but my favorites were the environmental portraits I took with the Nikon Z 24-200mm lens, perhaps not surprising since I’ve been craving these types of images for a while now.

This first image is my favorite of the two, the second was taken a few minutes later and further up the trail so I could include the mountains in the background. The lighting is more direct here and the light getting much softer, often a look I prefer, but in this case while I like both I prefer the shadows from the side-lighting of the first picture.

TAn owl perches on a large granite boulder with mountains in the background in McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Arizona on January 21, 2023. Original: _Z722832.NEF

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