Bird Watcher's Digest - March/April 2017

E

birdwatchersdigest.com • MARCH/APRIL ’ 17 • BIRD WATCHER’S DIGEST

Every once in awhile, you see an image that sticks with you, one you’ll never forget. The sailor-nurse smooch on V.E. Day comes to mind.

There are many others I won’t invoke, for not all of them are nice. One image has stuck with me for years, and it’s one of my favorite photographs of all time.

I never knew who created it, though. Lazy, I guess. I could have Googled it and found out.

Duh. Imagine my surprise when, in browsing through the photo albums of a new Facebook friend, I saw That Image. Bryan Holliday had made it. I don’t say “taken,” and you’ll understand why when you read his story.

Once in a blue moon, when I
make a nice photo, I’ll hear,
“Wow. You must have a really
good camera.” Every photog-
rapher hears this. And most
photographers do have a real-
ly good camera. My iPhone
is a really good camera. So is my
old Canon 7D. But it’s the brain,
the eye, and the mind behind the
lens that makes a photo. It’s the
thought that counts.

Sit back and be humbled, as I was, by the story of how this off-the-charts fabulous image was made by a middle-school science teacher who is also blazing his unique way as a visual artist, doing what he was made to do. I’m grateful to Bryan Holliday for answering the call when I asked him to write it up, so that I might share it in True Nature: