Psychedelic Duck

The Psychedelic Duck. Every photographer has that one image that one point in time that they can point to and say this is where it all started, this is where the decision was made to go from hobbyist to professional. I had shot professionally in a studio for years as a young man before giving it up to pursue other avenues for a career. Even after giving up the position in the lab I continued to have a heart for photography but my subjects changed. Instead of working with people I began to dabble in landscape and street photography and then gave up photography for the next 15 years.

After meeting and becoming a close friend with a budding professional photographer who was preparing to retire from His current profession as an active pastor I got back into photography. This time the format was somewhat different it was no longer shoot go to the darkroom and develop the negatives and print but shoot plug camera into the computer and evaluate what I had captured. This was a much quicker process. I actually began to enjoy photography once again and my friends, the Captain and his wife Mrs Capt encouraged me to continue to develop my skills in photography and to go back to school and obtain my BA in college, both of which I have done. They own the first copy of this print and the wallet copy of my degree; they were the encouragement I needed to move forward both personally and professionally.

This image was taken at a conference at Lake Junaluska in North Carolina. On the way to the meeting I walked back to the lake and seen this duck. This duck was unusual definitely a hybrid of some sort. It looks like a mallard and something but I am not sure what the something is. At any rate this duck was unusual so I captured an image of it. At the time I really didn’t notice the pattern in the water or maybe more appropriately I did not believe the camera I was using would capture it. Much to my surprise this basic mid-range point and shoot with a zoom did a fantastic job capturing the image. I guess this proves that it is not necessarily the camera but the person behind the camera and their vision in capturing the image that makes the difference.

But anyway this is how I got my new start and I have enjoyed shooting photographs ever since.

To view this image in our photo gallery click below

Click Here for More Information