I promise that at some point soon I’ll post something other than vacation pictures….I just photographed a birth last week, and will take newborn pictures next week, plus I think I have four sessions this month (including my first two stranger sessions - gulp). I’ve also got a bunch of pictures from sessions BEFORE my vacation that I never got posted. Maybe I’ll get caught up someday?? Wish me luck.

“In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.” ~ Aaron Rose*

I saw this quote tonight, and it prompted me to go hunting for a picture from this set. The light was truly amazing that day, so many layers and colours of light. Truly magical. Honestly, my entire vacation was like that…

*Found this quote on the always extra-ordinary Cinnamon’s flickr stream.

My parents just bought a summer/retirement home in the small country village where my mother grew up. It was built in the 1880’s, and has always belonged to a member of our extended family. It’s right across from my grandmother’s house, and just across the road is the long dirt road that leads down a steep hill to the beach.

To call the house rustic would be quite kind. It has one sink in the kitchen, only a toilet in the bathroom and needs a ton of work. However, when that work gets completed it will be such an incredible place, a home I know my parents will be happy and comfortable in, a place I can imagine brining my children during the summers and on holidays.

There is a spot in the house that I thought just begged for photos. I didn’t get near as much cooperation as I was hoping for - but can just picture portraits taken on these steps over the years. Don’t you agree?

I have SO many pictures to go through (between my mother and I, we took 1700 pics and videos during my five weeks at home) that I cannot imagine when I’ll ever get the time to go through them - but here are a few for now.

This summer, I tried my best to stay in the moment. This photograph has less than nothing going for it technically. The original is way underexposed, the angle is weird, there is no eye contact, horizon is tilted, limbs are chopped. Looking at it that way, this photograph is a total failure.

This picture taught me more about photography than any other I have taken.

I just finished watching my daughters splash and play in the incoming tide, wearing nothing but their birthday suits- splattered by occasional droplets of rain, with dark, rolling clouds overhead. We were in a sheltered bay, the land stretching out in a big ‘c’ on either side of us. Fog appeared on the horizon across the bay, obscuring the land directly across from us, and then swirled toward us in both directions - swallowing everything it touched. Somehow, right above us was a spot of clear sky. Although totally enclosed by fog on both sides, our little pocket of beach had nothing but a fine mist, and was still warmed by the sun. The fog seemed to muffle all the sounds around us, so it seemed like our little spot on the beach was the only thing that existed at that moment.

I was sitting on the rocks, knowing that my time at home was coming to an end, trying to soak in the beauty and magic of that moment. Julianna came toward me. running in her clumsy but purposeful toddler way and I lifted my camera. I didn’t pay any attention to focus, or what my shutter speed was, or even what my meter was reading. I just clicked the shutter, and a second later she was on top of me, knocking us both to the ground, giggling and hugging me and making the moment even more precious.

I can’t stop looking at this picture.

Photography is not always about zooming in to check out the eyelashes look at 100%, or about catchlights in the eyes, or about getting it all right. Sometimes, the perfect photograph is just about as imperfect as can be.

Just like this one.