CROSSROADS - Rock Dove, Pencoyd Bridge, KCMO

CROSSROADS

Rock Dove, Pencoyd Bridge, KCMO

I was out with my brother and my niece, taking her Senior High School photos, and we found ourselves on the stairs that lead up to the north end of the Pencoyd Bridge, the old railway bridge that was resurrected and relocated to provide a pedestrian crossing over the railroad tracks north of Union Station. The stairway is enclosed in an open structure of metal plates, and looking through these plates I was presented with this very exciting composition. We had other things to do, so I didn’t take a lot of time thinking about the shot; I just saw it, shot it, and got back to the business at hand.

Later, looking at the photo, I was really excited by it, except for one thing. Smack in the center of the photo, there was this pigeon sitting on the bridge with his back turned to the camera.

I tried to crop the photo so that the pigeon wouldn’t be right in the middle of the frame, so that he’d be artfully placed a little off center or something, but every time I tried I’d end up reverting to the original framing of the shot, as seen through the camera viewfinder, because the composition I’d created really was just what I wanted and cropping the image detracted from the energy that I felt in the photo. I thought about going back and re-shooting the photo, but that seemed like cheating, and anyway, I was getting pretty attached to it, even with the pigeon sitting there in the middle.

I had a friend once who was a world-class birder. He taught me that the pigeon’s real name is “Rock Dove”. In the city they make due scavenging garbage ­­– everybody hates them, and they get called “rats of the sky” – but before there were cities and garbage, the pigeon’s ancestors nested on cliffs and made an honest living off the land. Not that I want the flock that used to roost on my porch roof to move back, but when you look at pigeons as rock doves they’re not so bad.

So finally, I just decided to accept the photo, pigeon and all. He’s not so bad, really; he’s just a guy in the middle of a whole lot of crossing lines of chaos and motion trying to figure out where he’s heading in the world. I can kind of relate.