From the moment my daughter was born, she was most content when not inside. As a baby, the best way to calm her colicky crying was to snuggle her in a bouncy seat under the maple tree or, when it got cold, take her for a ride in a sled.
During her early years, I spent hours in the woods trailing a toddler looking for critters under overturned logs, disguised behind leaves, and lurking in the water. We amazed at how they were created to adapt to their environment and needs.
I started photographing the animals we found and put them into a book for my girl…and those little books became board books published a few years back. (Check out the All About God’s Animal series over here. They’d make a great Christmas gift.)
My girl is a tween now and doesn’t need me by her side as she builds tree forts and digs for fishing worms. And so it’s been a long, long time since I hunted the woods, beaches, and waterways for critters and nature to capture on film.
Until now. A few days ago, my girl asked me to go take pictures with her. The little dude was at soccer practice and the field is hemmed in with fields and trees—full of natural beauty, decay, and life all mixed together for us to explore.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
As the sun slowly dropped towards the horizon, the earth was bathed in golden light. It’s an ethereal time of day—that hybrid between light and dark. It’s impossible to describe the beauty in the collision of dark and light. There are all kinds of metaphors in that, but I’ll leave it to you to think about those.
For me, I walked away amazed that once again my girl challenged me to see something new, to see the beauty others miss and point it out for the world to see. And there’s nothing more gorgeous than that.
Hope you enjoy the journey as much as I did…
If you want to see my more “professional” shots or you just need
a great baby gift, check out my two board books.
I’m off writing lots of words on a new novel for National Novel Writing Month (affectionately called NaNoWriMo by the writing community). So I pulled this post from last year. Hope you enjoy it again.
She has such an amazing eye for detail. Like mama. 🙂 Thank you for showing this beauty, friend.
She’s an amazing kid for sure! She teaches me so much about myself and the world around me. Most days I love it. Other days, the learning process is a little more painful, but they’re all worth it 🙂
Just ordered both your board books off Amazon. Perfect as I was looking for a baby gift!
How awesome is that?! So glad they’ll come in handy for you. I hope the little one enjoys them as much as my kids did!