Drawing a Photo, First Part: The Boy Friend

Introduction Teaneck, Bergen County, New Jersey.

  When I showed this photo, a friend expressed: 

 “You are lucky to have captured that moment!” 

 -"No, my friend, no luck; one, I don't believe in luck, and second, dedicating almost two weeks of chasing would be exceedingly difficult to call it luck!” I responded. 

 - “Two weeks, how is that? You are going to have to tell me all about it?” My friend said excitedly! 

 - “Do you have time? It’s a two weeks long story.” I said. 

 - “I have time, but can you sum it up? He answer. 

 - “Of course!” 

 - “I would like to hear that story... over the warmth of a cup of coffee.” 

 While taking a sip of water, I started brewing coffee. My eight-year-old grandson said: 

 - “My grandfather knows how to draw the birds with his camera.” 

 I must clarify that his Spanish is not so fluent and perhaps he meant that "I knew how to take pictures' ' but my friend understood it as if I had made some photographic arrangement in the digital reveal, we smiled and his father, my son, laughed. It would be foolish to try to clarify to my friend what my grandson meant, it would divert us from the subject and the interest was the process in how I captured that moment. Coffee was already brewing, and its fragrance warned that it was time to serve it and start our story. Part One: The boyfriend Teaneck, Bergen County, New Jersey First, we went into context, it was in the beginning of spring and with it, the confinement by quarantine. For a few days we heard the insistence chirping of the birds. We have had a bird feeder in my yard for several years, it is common for their visits to be more scandalous, such as the northern cardinal but he was not the exception. Since the first days of spring, he was heard chirping every morning with a lot of strength. I saw him and I photographed him several times in the trees surrounding my house. It was fascinating to hear him. He repeatedly came to eat in my yard; I tried to take a picture, but it was not easy because he is extremely nervous, almost always he ate on the ground. I then got the idea of a different photo, as I said, already I had several photos of him on the branches of the trees that were adorned with the tender shoots of its leaves with spring colors. Those same photos had also seen other photographers. Every morning I saw him arrive and I already recognized his singing as beautiful as himself.

Northen Cardenal, Male

Northen Cardenal, Male