Duck, Luck and Goose.

When I am not saving the world from copious amounts of dog hair armed with my trusty lint rollers, I’m taking pictures. Nature, pets and the occasional human are my subject of choice. My dogs and horse are my muses and I am THAT girl running around after them with a camera to capture their every expression or ridiculous sleeping poses. However, I do venture out into the great wide open and capture beauty other than the glorious underbellies of my beasts. 

Living here in colorful Colorado, I am spoiled with an almost daily dose of sunsets to die for. The combination of elevation, Rocky Mountains, and jet stream winds create an enormous cloud-painted deep blue sky. My neighbors probably think I am crazy running outside in my favorite tie dye sweats to grab another shot of the day’s end. I have to navigate a virtual mine field of Canadian goose poop left by a flock of 300 who torment my dogs from the large open field outside my front door. 

As I am hunkering down in the grass trying to frame the pink and gold clouds, I kept stepping around this feather. I noticed it in the field outside my front door a couple of days ago and paid no mind to it. My mom’s voice always rings in my ears when i see a stray feather “Don’t touch that, it is filled with parasites!” I have never been one to pick up a stray feather, they remind me of mites and well basically…dead birds. And I have to be honest, I am not a fan of our feathered friends from the north. They are loud, mean, and leave a mess only a Sigma Chi keg party could rival. They are like a gang of bullies who honk obscenities at my dogs as they helplessly watch from the living room window. “Hey whitey? I’m pooping on your grass, whatcha gonna do ’bout it huh?”  All while leaving a trail of dirty feathers and gag-inducing muck all over my lawn. 

For whatever reason I was not getting the photos of my dreams last night and it dawned on me that this dirty feather was catching the afternoon glow. I ducked down (pun totally intended here) and caught that last light of the day behind that discarded plumage and created an image that blew up on Instagram* last night. Funny how I can set out to photograph what I have planned in my head as beautiful and end up with something totally random. I stepped over that feather numerous times to capture the pink and yellow sky and out of 20 or so shots, this happened.

Serendipity in the form of a something that fell off the butt of a goose. And this my friends, is why I love photography. One goose’s trash is this chick’s treasure. 

*follow me @trishkthedish for more gratuitous sunsets and dog photos, I also have a Facebook page for my photography at Big Blue Sky Photography if anyone wants to see stunning photos of my dogs eating peanut butter.