Our home is in a rural area and there is a soundtrack to our lives.
At night we often walk around outside in the spooky darkness and are amazed by the crazy-loud din that comes from a small wetland where there are thousands of frogs singing their little green heads off.
In the daytime, we are serenaded by my neighbors’ turkeys.
We own two-and-a-half acres but we view ourselves more as caretakers, not owners. (“Owning” sounds legal, while “Caretaking” feels ethical.) We keep most of our land wild and untamed, knowing that a well-manicured yard would deprive some green friend of his habitat. I poke around in the weeds and wetlands with a camera and a macro lens, looking for members of the Froggy Tabernacle Choir. When viewed up-close, my bug-eyed frog models make a barrel-full of monkeys seem dull by comparison.
And then there are the turkeys. Yesterday I called my neighbor and asked if I could walk over to his place, to see what I could see.
Have you ever really looked at a turkey (other than on a plate at grandma’s at Thanksgiving dinner?) Those fellows are photographic subject-matter with strut. There’s that face, kind of gaudy and weird but way-colorful; and the feathers (at least on the birds at my neighbors’ place) are a striking black and white that just scream Graphic Potential. In a turkey, you’ve got your color, your black and white, your shapes and patterns.
I could shoot a whole book of photographs, never straying more than walking-distance from my front door.
Now there’s an idea...
