Behind the Curtain: Two strokes of luck in capturing gull at dam

Sometimes you just get lucky, and this day I was not the only one to be lucky.

I was in between photo assignments and had stopped in the parking lot down by the dam in Elgin to process some images for our news cycle.

I kept seeing things moving about out of the corner of my eye.

Oh, the stories I could tell about things that have happened to me in my car while processing pictures.

It turned out that all that movement catching my eye was a flock of gulls dive bombing the river in search of food. Namely fish.

I needed a break from Photoshop, so I grabbed my camera with a 100-400 zoom on it and wandered over to check things out.

There were hundreds of birds darting across the sky and just above the water.

I kept tracking a few, when I realized that they were diving into the water looking for fish.

I followed a particular bird as it dove, surfaced and then proceeded to slide all the way to the bottom of dam.

I had never seen anything like that before.

I checked my camera and I had what looked to be 30-plus sharp frames of the bird in action.

I was lucky to get the bird with a fish going for a ride. After a few emails between colleagues, I settled on the frame that you see here.