A huge black raven perched on a mirror on the door of a black truck makes for an abstract and incongruous wildlife adornment. The driver, who quickly rolled up his window when the big bird took this perch, makes no secret of his patriotic inclinations – his vivid American flag decal, along with the blue sky reflected in the mirror, offers the only color in this image. (This raven is looking for handouts, which are prohibited in Yellowstone.) There are some photographers that would have routinely fired flash at this bird to “bring” out its feathers. My own approach is quite different. I never use a flash. I exposed on the white clouds in the mirror with my spot meter in order to make both the truck and bird a lustrous black. The resulting abstraction leaves much more the viewer’s imagination, and makes this image more expressive than a literal description.