While exploring Vancouver Island last March, this small tree out on Fairy Lake caught my eye. It was perched all alone, surrounded by water which was blanketed by soft velvet pastel reflections of the surrounding landscape.The trees surrounding this lonely stunted tree were coming back to life with the warming spring weather and looked so beautiful – it reminded me of life as many of us know it, when we look around and see what we don’t have and then dream about the how life would be so much better if we only had it …

Some of us go even further and sacrifice our free time, our family, and our personal identity, pushing ourselves and working endless hours to acquire it…. you know life is going to be so much better when we get what we think we need, but that one thing seems to turn into another and another.

Maybe it’s a new bigger house, a fancy car, or that New Year’s resolution where we are going to lose a number of pounds so we can look like how we are convinced we should. Hollywood movies, TV advertising, and magazine pictures load us with images that brainwash us into believing that we will not be happy until we look like the model in the pictures or buy that sports car that everyone just has to have, then somehow we will be happy and life will be perfect…you know because the people that have all that stuff are just so happy.

If you look at the picture, yes, you see all the beauty surrounding this single tree – but the real beauty in the picture is in the tree itself. With out the colourful background, that little tree is still beautiful. How can it not be- it is one of a kind. We are one of a kind and there is only one of each of us, we are all perfect in our own way – its just that easy. Photography has gifted me with seeing things more openly and what is right in front of me. Beauty is all around us and all we have to do is open our eyes to really see what was there all the time.