The Old Amargosa Hotel, formerly part of a borax-processing center just outside Death Valley, is frequently visited by peacocks that have adapted to life in the surrounding desert. I found this one taking a stroll along the hotel's colonnade. The rhythmic repetition of the colonnade pillars is the force that holds this image together and draws the eye into and through the image and out the door at the back. Only the peacock interrupts this flow. It wants to keep us from going past it. It is this tension between the peacock as focal point, and the compelling thrust of its colonnade context, that gives this image both its organization and its meaning. The peacock brazenly turns its back to us, and with a half glance, it dares us to take our eyes off him.