There are few things I like to photograph more than birds.
I am constantly lifting my eyes to the sky to track a hawk or marvel at the aerial ballet of a raven. The design of birds along tree limbs and telephone wires always mesmerizes me. I worry that one day I’ll drive right off the road thanks to a bird. I try to remind myself that it’s okay to stop and just watch. Stop, whip out my camera, and shoot.
Clouds also captivate me.
While exploring the Rio Puerco on a beautiful day in June, a couple of years ago, my Mom and I watched as a small cumulus cloud bubbled over a distant mesa and ballooned into the perfectly blue sky like an explosion.
By the end of the day, the cloud had fanned out above us. It curved over the bowl of the sky, reaching for the opposite horizon. I loved how the changing form of the cloud echoed the pinnacle of the mesa, dwarfed on the horizon below.
I thought initially that 2010 would be a year to shoot clouds. One shot a day (at least) of whatever cloud offered itself up in the ether.
Then, I realized I had to add birds to the mix. Birds and clouds. A shot a day. A chronicle of a new year, start of a new decade. I imagine that some days might be rather dull, bird-wise. Perhaps a cloudless day or several will stretch out before me. Perhaps I will strain my neck through those days waiting for my shot. Finding little but blue, birdless sky. On those days, that’s what I’ll shoot.
Happy 2010. Here we go….
-Ana June, photographer, writer, mother.
