Not every subject I photograph is human.
During a layover in Albany, New York, I drove out to see my longtime best friend Allison, whose home is a working farm — chickens, a pack of rambunctious dogs, and a peacock named Roger.

Roger is named after my dad, which remains one of my favorite facts in the entire world.

The Wyandotte hen got her own portrait, full color and plumage detail catching the afternoon light. Then Roger himself, tail on full display, strutting the yard like he owned it — which, fair enough, he does. The dog spent a solid stretch of the visit attempting, unsuccessfully, to herd him across the lawn, Roger utterly unbothered by the whole production. By the end he'd made his way up into a tree, perched high enough that I had to tip the camera all the way back to get him.

This is the kind of shoot that never would have happened if I'd been "working." I was visiting a friend with a camera on the layover — which, it turns out, is most of how the best images happen.