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.