A Different Kind of Bird

The birds I normally shoot are all over the place. They flit from tree to tree or swoop from behind from power lines and tap me on the head demanding treats. The birds I shoot are wild. Outdoorsy types. Not big on ice or buzzers or being confined to an indoor arena.

The birds I shoot definitely don't stay up past 11pm on a Sunday night to play hockey.

The Dirty Birds, on the other hand...

Hooters vs. Flamingos April 1 2024.

I've never done an athletic shoot, unless you count little dogs chasing each other around the park, or crows playing hassel-the-hawk, but let me tell you, I will never again curse the sunlight and its magic powers of over-exposure. Action shots under fluorescents are noisy as fuck. I had the auto ISO set at max 5000 and I still had to bump up the light in the edits. Fortunately most of you will be looking at these on your cell phones and won't hear a thing.

But you know what? I like how my first try turned out.

These last two years I've pushed myself so far out of my comfort zone I can't even tell anymore what the parameters of that zone are. I've crossed the Atlantic, crossed the Pacific, and driven to the Arctic Ocean. I've logged hundreds of hours of therapy, embraced my queerness, and joined a hockey league. And I've made real live human friends.

Through the lens of my camera, my eye is objective. Artistic. Through this lens I see my own human experience.

I've learned what it means to stop giving a shit about what others think so long as I'm not hurting anybody (myself included), and what it looks like to put that learning into practice.

Practice means no such thing as perfection. It means always striving to be as good as or better than I know I can be. And finding the joy in that eternal quest.

It means some days I will look like this:

And others like this:

As long as I'm doing what I love, it's all good. And should I stop loving what I do, I'll just find a new game.

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