I am told I have an eye and a knack for catching moments in pictures. I once made my cousin pull off the side of the road so that I could take a picture of sunlight filtering through trees bespeckling a country road. She thought I was crazy, but she stopped anyway. I have captured thousands of moments over the years, some better than others, but the ones that I think of the most are the ones that are just in my memory.
I remember riding the school bus to my high school and spotting a lumbering cow through heavy fog. It was the grayish lack of color and the calmness of the way the animal moved that made it beautiful. Sometimes I see complete strangers do something that I would love to capture in a photo. Riding a train to downtown Chicago, I looked out the window at the exact moment a woman stepped onto her back porch and shook out a rug. The sunlight hit the dust just right so that an uncountable number of reflections shimmered in the air. It was a small glimpse into her life while she did a simple task, yet the result was spectacular in my eyes.
Driving down a tree-lined gravel road in Nebraska, we reached a clearing, and I looked out to see a real-life cowboy riding his horse. Just like in the movies, he caught his hat above his head as the horse galloped through a meadow. What a shot that would have been!
From small towns to big cities to country roads, there is beauty everywhere. See it, frame it, appreciate it, remember it. Moments are precious. Moments string together to make a life, and we never know when one of our moments will create a special moment for someone else.