"Sunset with Canada Geese", taken with an Olympus 4 megapixel camera, 2002.

It was migration season for the Canada Geese. The night before taking this shot I was fishing in the middle of Lake Gaston near Buoy # 3. On that night, I had forgotten to bring my camera -- something I rarely do -- and it seemed like every Canada Goose using the East Coast Flyway honked by overhead. I swear, some of them knew I didn't have a camera with me and flew past, grinning, upside-down scant inches above my head. The cockamamie geese were laughing at me.

But, on the next evening, I was prepared and waiting for them, and Mother Nature was on my side with a rapt display of sunset. It was almost getting too dark to shoot, and -- way in the distance -- I heard a noisy flock heading in my direction. Straight up the lake, heading right for me. The sun was setting so quickly I was worried about getting the shot. Worse, still, it took my little point-and-shoot camera a full 8 seconds to recycle between shots: I would have only one try before the geese, the sun, the entire scene was swallowed up in the dark. My fingers were trembling. I waited. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Okay -- NOW!

Click.

When I got home I loaded the picture into my computer and was astonished. Given the timing problems I had to overcome, it was an amazing photograph. Unfortunately, there was one sneaky goose whose wings -- unlike any of those flapping behind or around him in the entire flock -- were locked in a straight downward position, like it was performing a pushup or something. Very awkward-looking and totally out of sync with the rest of the picture. I put the photo aside for several years. Then one night when I couldn't get to sleep, I fired up Photoshop's "healing band-aid" tool and erased that silly show goose forever.