Black-capped Chickadee: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, January 2026 — I took a photoprowl around the neighborhood the other day and came back with this. This is not a photograph of a bird, but a photograph of light with a bird in it. There are lots of things “wrong” with this photograph from a technical (and maybe even aesthetic) standpoint, but somehow it just works for me. It whispers something I want to hear and I find myself being still to listen. The round highlights in the background are called bokeh balls, and are an artifact of focused light, while the slanting subtle wave-like lines are produced by refraction of light through the branches of the tree. I could not have intentionally produced, or even predicted, that background effect. Then you have the strong busy diagonals of the more-or-less in focus bare branches cutting mostly against the grain of the background, and the halo of backlight caught in the feathers of the chickadee. And finally, you have the bird itself…those knowing eyes. It has a delicate, oriental feel to it…or maybe almost impressionistic. And again, it had to “just happen”…I would not even begin to know how to produce this effect. Sony a6700. Sigma 16-300 at 450mm. Program with bird and wildlife modifications. +1EV for the backlight. Processed in Photomator.