Often I use multiple photographs together to achieve a certain composition in my repainted photos. This one was pure magic – the bird was in the shot as I took it, I found out only after I looked at a print later.

This image is one of a series of the mission at San Juan Bautista, the largest of the Spanish missions in California. Built in 1797, the mission was used in the 1958 Hitchcock film Vertigo. A bar in San Juan Bautista uses the name ‘Vertigo’.

My exhibit at Leedo Gallery is up! It will hang through the month of May. It’s at 7436 Monterey St. in Old Gilroy, California.