Project 365 d-202

     Tonight I had to head into town for a quick trip to the store. One thing I have learned about living in the country is that you really have to plan ahead when shopping. It seems like we are always running out of something when nobodies in town. Still, all I need to do is survey my land, listen the sounds of the birds, and smell the flowers to make these small grocery runs seem trivial. My oldest road with me for some company and I also brought my camera because I still hadn't photographed yet. Plus, I hoped this would be a good chance for her to see me actually creating for Project 365. At times, I don't think she fully grasps what I'm doing, so my hope is that seeing the process would make it more real for her. She has some artistic talent that hasn't seemed to go in any specific direction, and I want to make sure she gets a spoonful of everything off the menu.

     After a short trip inside the store, we headed outside to load the groceries and leave. The sky is beautiful this time of night as Twilight spreads out is vast, translucent blanket as darkness' opening act. It occurred to me that it was a good time for a light study, and I would let her pick out the subjects. After explaining to her what we were going to do, she excitedly started pointing out subjects to me as we drove out of the parking lot. "Look at that Daddy", she'd squeal! Turning the camera around for her to see the light painting on the LCD screen just made her shout out more targets even quicker. "What about that", she said? "Oh, look over there, Dad", she demanded! In the rear view mirror; I could see her eyes sparkle and her amazing smile lit by the glow of the magic come to life on the screen before her. She continued to play spotter for me until all the lights faded as we left the bright city behind us. It feels like I'm the luckiest father on the face of the Earth to have shared these moments with my daughter.

     In my mind, I hoped for a solid image to use for today's photo, but I wouldn't trade a million good photos for what we experienced tonight. Father and daughter making art together after grocery shopping. How cool is that?  Among the many things I'm trying to teach her is that Art is everywhere all the time. Sometimes it's ripe and ready to be harvested, while other times it needs to be cultivated, or mixed together with other elements for a killer Art dish. Tonight with her help there is a good photo meal to share. Secretly, I want her to be an image farmer like me, but most of I hope that she will always have a hunger for Art. For as surely as food sustains the body; Art sustains the soul.

Happy Shooting.