when i can teach....

i saw her sitting off in the distance, in the sand, completely content. 

after taking our own family photos and laughing at the little boy near her who was wickedly throwing a frisbee in the direction of unsuspecting beach walkers, i set off to find her parents.

i found her mother and complimented her on how sweet and still her daughter was. she said she's always like that. especially in the sand. she told me how she'll sit for hours, just sifting through the sand over and over again, completely unaware of how she's eating and breathing the granules. i asked her if  i could photograph her, and she said yes. she then said, i dressed her cute tonight in hopes of getting some nice photos myself, but the light's all wrong. i choked on my gum and then told her that actually the light at that moment was perfect. that's it's called the beginning of the golden hour and while you're in florida the golden hour is actually a few hours long. she asked if i was a photographer and because i still have difficulty calling myself that, i said, yep, that's what i do.

i then i showed her. i pointed out to her how the light was falling. where it was coming from. the best place to stand. how the light made her daughter's red hair shine. then she started taking photos herself and was giddy. she had a wonderful nikon camera and if i had had more time, i would have shown her more. i would have explained aperture and moved her settings off of auto, but i was with my family and we were ready to move on.

these are the things i love to teach. i am so far from ever knowing everything about photography and i continue to learn something new everyday, but the things i do know, i want you to know. i think that's human nature. that we want to teach and to share with others the things we know. 

especially when we love doing what we know.

i would have loved to have taught this mom about "catch light" but that would have been for another day. another time. instead, i let this sweet little pumpkin look right at us, as she finally raised her head and realized we were even there. it produced squinty {the sun is blinding me} eyes, but i didn't care. it let me capture the sand caked on her face and dancing in her scalp.

this is why i find strangers fascinating. just look at what i got to shoot, what i got to teach, the interaction i had, because i went up to a woman and asked, "is that your daughter?"

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i hope this weekend you're surrounded by strangers,  in a good and maybe sandy way

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