Watching that sun crest over the horizon.

The moment that you see that first little sliver of light to me is so special.

It's the one time of the day when you can actually watch light defeat darkness.

It's it's an important, hopeful message to see the sun coming out from behind.

Something.

Something trying to hide light.

But light finds its way around it.

That, to me, is like the coolest notion in any photograph that you could see.

You know, when I go out and I take an image, I want to show people and share with people what I saw, but I also want to look at it myself and remember that moment and remember what I felt.

This started as a hobby.

Is it a hobby anymore?

It's become a need.

And thank God my wife is as awesome as she is.

And she understand when I say I'm going to, I really feel like I. I want to take a couple days up in Acadia or the White Mountains, and she knows that it's it's become something that really is restorative for me, especially when things get really tense or crazy at work.

I just need a break.

And that right there is a beatiful sound I don't want to think about how I would feel if I couldn't do it, because I know I get antsy if I can't.

You know?

So.

All right, we got we want you to boil your weekend down to three things.

You had me at mini donkeys.

You had me.

I'm giving you a nine.

Not bad, not bad.

A little rate your weekend there.

All right.

So many realizations that I've had that have been noticed by people I'm close to before me.

And I had a friend of mine say, did you ever think that you spent most of your life in a medium that is all about sound and noise, and yet you find peace in something without it?

And I was like, that's pretty sharp.

But he's right.

The silence is now what I crave.

Look, I still love the job.

I still love that part of me.

But it's fueled by or balanced by the quiet that I seek when I'm doing this, you know?

Which is why I often do it alone.

I love having somebody with me.

I love to talk.

I love to, you know, be with friends and things, but I also love.

Sitting in a place like this and not hearing anything.

But the moments when you can be out in a place in the middle of nowhere, or maybe in a place that's very populated, except at 5 a.m.

when it's not and it's quiet, it's the best remedy in the world, really is for me.

This right here is is Portsmouth Prescott Park.

Right.

And what's great about what I love about images like this is this is the place people go to all the time.

People are always walking through it.

Yet at 4:00 in the morning, before the sun came up on this winter morning, that snow was crunchy and it was a crunched underneath my feet and the lights just.

And the way the snow stuck to the trees.

It's like I sat here going, why am I the only one here to see this?

And that's one of the things that is a reward of going out, right?

Making the effort to go out and look is, is is what you do for the reward of experiencing the moment.The photo's the bonus But standing there and look at that and going, man, this is beautiful.

This is my favorite picture that I've ever taken because a month before it was taken, my daughter was in the intensive care unit at Boston Children's Hospital after having a brain event.

It was it was 2008.

My daughter was 15 and she complained of a really bad headache, you know, so we took her to the emergency room.

The test came back that something was wrong, and they found that a blood vessel had burst in her brain.

And at first when they told us that they thought there was a tumor as well, and we went from having a headache to watching her get strapped into a gurney to be taken to Boston Children's.

The doctors told us that, you know, that she may not walk again, talk again, go to school.

She may not survive.

I've always said it's, you know, the conversation.

No parent ever wants to have.

A club no parent wants to be a part of.

But.

So anyway, she was there for a couple of weeks and in essentially it blew itself out.

And so we got through that.

But going through that kind of trauma where you didn't know whether the child was going to make it or whether she wasn't.

Everything changed.

But from the worst part of our lives came the best lessons and stop taking things for granted and started paying attention to the things that I missed.

Beautiful things, you know, things that could bring you calm and joy and peace.

And the cool thing about that is from the camera, I got the opportunity to breathe, which is the best advice I ever got from a friend.

When we were going through that at the hospital with my daughter, it means two things to me breathing in the biological necessary sense, but also breathing in what's around you, you know, kind of emotionally.

And once I started thinking about that and doing that when I was out in a place like this, or along the beach or along, you know, in the mountains or whatever, this whole world opens up to you that you never knew before, it was a bald eagle.

Don't know if you could see it, just crazy.

See what I mean?

Doesn't get any better than that, man just doesn't.

The whole thing is a gift.

The whole what I went through and how I got to where I am today has been a huge gift, because it's made me better in everything.

One of the great rewards that I've gotten from this journey that with the camera, is opening people's eyes to what's out there, places that they can go and see that don't cost anything and they don't need a fancy camera.

People like, well, I don't have a good camera.

You don't need you don't even need a camera.

Go out.

Find the place along the ocean.

Sit on the rocks for 20 minutes and tell me that you don't feel better.

Just listening to the waves and watching the ocean.

Tell me that sitting, you know, on a lakeside, watching a sunset or something.

Just take those moments and find them.

You get rewarded for looking, and you don't need to be a photographer, or you don't need to be any good at that.

You don't even need to have a camera if you if you have a lot going on in life and everybody does find your peace and whatever it is and protect it.

I have a sweatshirt that says protect your peace on it, and it's probably the greatest slogan ever, because the world's going to try and take it away from you and make it more difficult for you to have that.

You're going to have obligations.

You're going to have all these things that you have to do.

Family things, everything, but don't feel bad about creating a space for you to do what lets you breathe, you know?

Don't feel bad about that.

Protect your peace.

My favorite slogan.

That's what the day was forecasted to be right there.

Just gray skies and rain.

But I came out anyway.

And Mother Nature painted the sky for me.

And you can't find a better artist than that.