One night, an owl, and lots of lights

I don't usually take photos at night, but today my wife and I wanted to go out and see the city's Christmas lights, so I decided to bring my camera. The first thing I noticed was a small owl perched on a power line. At first, I saw it moving and thought it was just another bird, but I had no idea it was an owl. And to my surprise, it was a baby owl, which I'd never seen before. Actually, this type of bird isn't very common; I think the last time I saw one was about 10 years ago. Anyway, it was a surprise.

Then, along the way, I took some photos of signs and storefronts. I also wanted to create some compositions of the Christmas lights using the camera's zoom panning. For me, that's how I play around with the camera, creating that panning effect in the resulting images.

It was definitely a good night walking through a more decorated part of the city, taking advantage of the opportunity to capture the scenes shown here. Although, I had to use the flash much more than usual, and in the case of the owl photo, I had to use it because it was very dark; you could barely see the bird's slight movement. The way I managed to capture it was quick, and I only took one shot so as not to disturb the owl with the flash. Even a minute after the photo was taken, the owl flew away; it had to be that precise moment.

All photographs are my own.