LoveUbecause … my duck found a home

LoveUbecause … my duck found a home

Purchasing art. Art and stories. Sometimes the creation is the story, sometimes the purchase is the story …

I have often said that though it may be several years in coming, there is always an owner, or buyer to match with a particular piece of art or photography.

There is that moment when all comes together in  artistic happen stance -  which sometimes is admittedly a little more confused and disorderly than necessary - when that image, those strokes, that composition, for whatever reason, circumstance or appeal, finds its rightful home and owner.

I went to a fund-raiser this past weekend for a large organization that promotes the preservation of wetlands and migratory water fowl – ducks in particular -  throughout North America. I was invited to attend  as a “guest artist”, as I provided an artistic  donation  to be included in the live auction.

I have to confess  that I  had  trouble deciding what to donate.  My style of painting is expressionistic and sometimes borders on the abstract. I was concerned that  anything I brought would not fit in with the theme as “I have never painted a duck in my life”.  As I explained to the audience prior to the bidding, this presented me with a quandary. What should I contribute?

Fortunately, though a “duck-less” painter, I am also a photographer – or as I prefer, “ an artist with a camera”. I am familiar with the functions of most of the buttons and switches on my Nikon, but  in my estimation,  I am a little lean on the technical side.  I often have to stop and think about an f-stop of 22 in comparison to one of 8. Will it let in a large, or small amount of light? Oh those dang technicalities!

Fortunately, in spite of any technical shortcomings, I am told, I have a “good eye” for composition and the “interesting angle”.  This is presumably true, as my photographs

 and photo illustrations  have been displayed in art galleries, sold through stock photo agencies, used in magazines and promotional materials and  on a vast variety of web sites . So, by donating a nicely framed  photograph, I wasn’t providing anything short on quality, in comparison to a “duck-less” painting. Moreover, I had just the photograph  in mind!

I spent quite some time finding the photograph in question. You see, just as the artistic attic of my mind tends, at times, to be somewhat cluttered with unsorted thoughts, so always is the hard drive on my computer, with disorganized photo files.

I had a clear vision of the image I was seeking and easily managed to find a low resolution, unprintable version. Unfortunately, I couldn’t  remember what year, or where exactly, I captured “the shot.” and this particular version of the photograph was missing the original digital time-stamp.  Finding the high resolution, printable version proved an unenviable, eye straining, patience testing task.

Imagine typing “*.jpg” into the search engine on your computer  and almost 30,000  images appear! Very slowly, little icons dotted the screen, begging to be examined for one particular duck – and that was on only one hard drive!  There were also the  DVDs, the 500 gigabyte  external hard drive - thankfully not quite full -  and let’s not forget the older collection of CDs - all image laden!

 As this is not the first time I have found myself in this predicament - helplessly trying to track down one particular image amongst thousands – the requisite  unpleasant oaths were muttered. Restless sighs of frustration were loudly “sighed”. It was  all enough for my wife to suggest I “stop that”,  as she passed by my office door.

Of course, the thought to “one day” organize all these photographs into a logically indexed,  collection crossed my mind. Imagine at a moments notice being able to  select a long ago, captured scene from my own Google-like, organized, electronic, image albums!  Well guess what, “that ain’t never going to happen, Stanley, ’cause I’m too busy trying to find lost pictures!” – and don’t ask me who Stanley is, though I am sure I have a picture of him on my hard drive, somewhere!

As I said, sometimes my thoughts get a little cluttered – point proven! Now I shall quit ranting! Back to my ducky story …

“And so it was”, as they say in those epic tales, as the search achingly slowly became, the elusive duck  was eventually found – just as I thought -  in a directory with a whole lot of photographs of butterflies! Well, I guess they all do have wings.  All so very logical – Google-like, sort of - not!

I  always liked this photo. It is a fleeting moment unexpectedly captured in an unusual circumstance, but like many of my photographs, it was not taken with a particular use in mind – it never had a “home”.

I recall that I once spent endless hours squatting on the muddy shore of a lake in Florida. There I was, the duck Paparazzi, unsuccessfully attempting to keep my feet and bottom dry and go home with the ducky “money shot”. Ironically, it was on a photography outing to a butterfly sanctuary in British Columbia that I inadvertently turned, noticed this bird sitting at the edge of a pond, hungrily, eyeing the large,  gold fish passing through the water beneath. As is my nature, I spontaneously, without concern for  F-8, 11 or 22, snapped the shot.  Voilà!  “Thinking About Lunch” came into being. Florida? Forget about it!

Now I am quite certain that the gold fish, actually closer in colour to the ”l’orange” in duck, was never actually devoured. But  I must confess, I am hoping  that the fowl in question was indeed a duck! Hopefully the “duck people” were not just humouring me, as I expounded upon my avian tale. Wouldn’t that be a lark … duck … whatever.  

In retrospect, as  an artist with little talent for ornithological identification, I could have,  though well intentioned , presented  a photograph of the very rare, short-tailed, Peruvian, green-winged pheasant  - should there be such a thing. Let’s hope not – that would be embarrassing! And Lord knows, such things just don’t happened to me! 

I know the sum of my duck knowledge may not extend much past the  delicious, crispy skinned, breast that I used to thoroughly enjoy at a restaurant, of the same name, “The Duck”. But I am indeed pleased,  that  “my duck”, or perhaps obscure duck-like creature featured in “Thinking About Lunch”, did indeed find a good home!

Wayward, disorganized  and difficult to find as it was in the electronic habitat of my computer’s hard drive, the hunt for the duck - the only kind of hunting I do - was , I think, well worthwhile.

I was happy to have contributed to the preservation of our environment and fair feathered friends. But just as important, the first print of “Thinking About Lunch” found a home and owner   and what the heck , it makes for a good duck story!

“A” the “O” in LVE!

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Posted in About Love and Life, Animals, Art, Country Living
Tags: Animals, Art, birds, duck, fish, fun, life, love, photography, photos, wildlife