A family of deer walk through Oxford Lake after a summer rain.

I took this photo of deer in the water while walking around Oxford Furnace Lake near my home with my family. I remember when I saw it and I remember the hair standing up on my arm. I was excited. Peacefully calm and it was quiet. It had just rained hard and I was looking forward to some off camera flash portraits of my wife and daughter knowing how much flash is fun after a hard rain. Seeing the deer walking through the water was so beautiful it made me catch my breath. It was also a wonderful reminder to me about the joy of finding unexpected beauty in familiar places. Some moments everything feels right in the world behind a camera and you can feel like you are doing what you were meant to do in the moment you were born to do it. Afterwards, you spend a lot of time wondering why. I think about this photo a lot. It reminds me of how much I love my family. How blessed I am to have them. It reminds of how lucky I feel to have found this passion for photography and moments like this one. I feel my life has always been a constant search for meaning and a yearning for love and relationship. I desire to live life much deeper than on the surface. To strip away the masks and the need to be accepted. Sometimes I feel like I should wear a sign around my neck that says “please like me” because it feels so good when people do.  Somewhere, deep rooted inside of me, that desire certainly fueled my desire to make great pictures.

I like this photo and there are terribly few of those I have ever shot. I like it because of how it makes me feel and how it reminds of me of who I am and somewhere under the surface who I want to be.