How I Photographed a Short-Eared Owl on Highway 395
Some of my favorite photographs begin with a drive I had no plans to stop on. Owl Eyes is one of them. It came on a cold day in early December 2025, on Highway 395 in the Eastern Sierra, with Kristin and our dog, Chestnut, riding along in the van. A rope swing, a hot spring, and a fence post all played a part, so let me walk you through how a short-eared owl ended up in one of the sharpest portraits I have made.
Road tripping Highway 395, I took a side road to Twin Lakes. Along the way, birds. Lots and lots of birds, but nothing of note. However, on the way back, after the coldest swim of my life, an owl sat upon a fence post.
Pulling out my Tamron 150-500mm lens, I spent an hour locking eyes with this owl.
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We were road tripping down 395 when I decided to peel off at Bridgeport and head for Twin Lakes. On the way, birds sat on posts and wires all along the road. It was bright daylight, the kind of flat, hard light that makes wildlife photography feel like a bad idea. So I kept driving. I did not stop for a single one.
Twin Lakes had its own plan for me. There is a rope swing there, and I saw it the moment we pulled up. It was December. Every reasonable instinct said to leave it alone. I jumped anyway. The water was so cold that it felt less like a swim and more like a polar plunge, and I can honestly call it the coldest swim of my life. I climbed out, dried off, and we pointed the van toward Travertine Hot Springs, which suddenly sounded like the best idea anyone had ever had.
On the drive back, I saw the owl. It sat on a post beside a farm field, and the day had settled into a clean, warm sunset. I swapped lenses as fast as I could, reaching for the Tamron 150-500 on my Sony. Then I made the classic mistake. I shut the van door and stepped outside, and the owl lifted off the post and flew away. That was that. Or so I thought.
We drove a little farther down the road, and there it was again, perched on another post. This time I stayed in the vehicle and shot out the window. The owl did not mind at all. It was hunting, watching the field, and every so often it turned to stare at us and blink. I was somewhere between 50 and 80 feet away, and I used all 500 millimeters to get as close as I could.
By then the sun had set. The light was faded, but there was still a glow in the sky, and it turned everything into a scale of browns, from the field to the post to the feathers themselves. The eyes did the rest. They came out crisp, and I owe a lot of that to the autofocus on my Sony. Later, I cropped the frame modestly so the eyes sat just above the center mark, and I kept it as a portrait, because that is what the owl asked for.
The whole sequence took about an hour. That includes spotting the owl, swapping the lens, watching it fly off, driving down the road, and finding it again. Nothing about it was staged. The owl went on hunting, and I got lucky enough to be there while it did.
I do not shoot wildlife as often as I shoot landscapes and people, but it is growing on me quickly. One of the quiet perks of spending so much time outside for work is that I get to see animals most people never notice. Owl Eyes is a small piece of that, and it is one I am proud to share.
The print is available in seven sizes, from 8x10 to 24x36, on paper, metal, or canvas, starting at $26.95, and it takes about 5 to 10 days to print and ship. It is an open edition, and I try to sign each one.
Go check out all the prints by Dalton Johnson.
About the Author
Dalton Johnson is a photographer, writer, and filmmaker who tells stories about real people pushing themselves in the outdoors, from the High Sierra to the far reaches of every continent. He has shot and written for brands, tourism boards, and editorial outlets, including Nike, Patagonia, Four Seasons, PBS, GoPro, and Ford, with more than 160 campaigns and hundreds of published articles to his name. Off assignment, he bikepacks, trail runs, swims open water, chases big waves, and rock climbs.
