Favorite Photos: My Daughter at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium

One of the greatest things about photography are the times our own photos transcend any expectation we had in that moment about what the photo would capture. As I casually took this photo of my nearly three-year-old daughter, I didn’t realize what a window into the wide-eyed wonder of childhood it would be. It was her first time seeing dolphins in an aquarium, and prior to this she got to see them from above as they performed in a show – jumping, flipping, spinning. But from below she got to see them in a whole different way as the swam gracefully underwater.

I can’t even imagine what she thought as she watched them, but the photo captured a moment in time that now encapsulates so much more to me than it did when I took the photo. It’s going to be a special one for a long time.