I've been lucky enough to fly a few times - no, not with my arms flapping, rather on jets and small planes. For me there has always been that transitional, magic moment as the aircraft roars down the runway and begins to rise on a cushion of air, that magic moment when the battle with gravity seems won, when all things seem possible.

I made this photograph on the beach, at sunset, in Bandon, Oregon. I wonder what the seagull was thinking as it made that change from a somewhat awkward web-walker to an athletic acrobatic of the skies.