Through the Lens, Through the Madness

Some places hum with history. Others growl.

Thompson’s Mill was the latter, a ghost of industry, all rusted bones and whispering machinery, still clinging to relevance through the cracks in its wooden skin. A place built for grain and labor, long since surrendered to memory and the slow encroachment of moss.

Robert and I were drifting through the grounds like two photographers on a pilgrimage to nowhere. The sky was pale and mean, the wind picking up just enough to make you doubt your footing. We weren’t even looking for birds. Hell, we weren’t even sober enough to know what we were looking for. But there they were, out on a skeletal branch in the middle of the overgrown tangle:

A hummingbird and a goddamn Bluejay.

Perched like rival spirits caught in a ceasefire.

The Bluejay sat still, smug and puffed like a bar brawler waiting for the next glass to break. The hummingbird, twitchy and manic, hovered above like it had just mainlined espresso and divine purpose. Two extremes. Two utterly incompatible winged lunatics sharing one barren stretch of tree.

I froze. Camera up. One shot. Two. Fingers shaking, not from nerves, but from the sheer absurdity of it.

This wasn’t just a photo. It was a statement.

Opposition. Balance. Madness.

Tiny chaos and loud arrogance, caught together in one impossible, quiet frame.

Robert looked over and said, “Man, that’s weird.”

No poetry. No theory. Just the simple truth that something here was out of place. And maybe that’s what made it real.

You don’t find shots like that when you’re trying. You find them when you’ve surrendered to the strange. When you’ve let the lens take you where logic says you shouldn’t be. A crumbling mill. A haunted breeze. And two birds, holding a moment together like it was stitched with electricity and mutual suspicion.

The hummingbird blinked first.

Darted off like it had somewhere more important to be.

The Bluejay stayed. Watching. Judging. Still not blinking.

And me? I got the shot.