"Now wait."

One of our daughters always used to say, “Now wait.” It was one of those useless annoying statements that was always in response to our wanting her to go somewhere or do something. “Now wait,” she would reply. Naturally, as parents, we had developed an equally annoying set of responses that eventually wore the statement into oblivion, never to be said again, until now, that is, when I need it to photograph.

It seems that no matter how dark it may be, there is always light, we just have to wait until it builds up enough in the camera to create an image. This particular image of a white hydrangea was captured in a 52 second exposure, with the help of a few swipes of a flashlight, more than an hour after the sun had gone down. My camera was actually beginning to talk back to me after a long day of shooting, as if it wanted to quit and go home. But I said, “Now wait,” I just need 52 more seconds of your time.

Finally, that annoying statement of so many years ago meant something.