In 2023, I took a birthday trip to Litchfield Beach, SC with my parents and best friend, Hannah. One thing I really wanted to do was see the sunrise on the ocean (along with parasailing, but that’s a different story for a different blog lol. To sum it up, we did it and it was awesome).

Anyways, here we are at about 6am on this empty beach with a sunrise full of baby blues, pinks, and purples. You could hear the waves crash and a seagull sing every so often. I of course had my camera with me, so I’d been taking many portrait and landscape photos (view below), but after a while, I began leaning into some street photography.

Street photography is something I had never tried before, and truth be told it’s something I still don’t attempt often. Taking pictures of strangers is a little scary. I don’t want anyone to get upset with me… I’m not the most confrontational individual lol.

I also like when photos get to tell a story, but that can be difficult when most people just stroll by on a beach. It’s hard to make something out of a book when I’m merely bypassing it on it’s shelf, make sense?

But then, I saw a young woman walking down the beach, and she was playing fetch with her golden retriever. It was sweet, and in my photographer brain, very cinematic. So I lifted my lens in their direction, and started snapping away.

She then calls her pup, and out of the water the dog runs to her. She bends down, pulls out her phone, and begins taking photos herself.

I press the shutter button on my camera so fast hoping to catch this, and here is the image I captured. I felt something very poetic about the moment. The fact that she thinks she went unnoticed, perhaps. Loving something (or in this case, this fluffy little someone) without credit or praise. It reminded me of the sweetness to simple love.

To me, this photo represents the raw honey taste that comes from loving purely. Loving quietly.<3