Diane Walker

In the Still of the Night

Digital photograph
2/1/2009
16 x 20 inches

I had gone to a little cottage, built out on stilts over Washington’s Hood Canal, for a weekend retreat. The weather was stormy when I arrived on Friday night, and the waves continued to pound the sand below the cottage through the night and most of the day Saturday. My interior reflections were equally stormy as I wrestled with a new career direction, but by evening the wind and I had found a sense of calm. I had stepped out on the deck to photograph the sunset, but as the light began to die I turned away from the sun and was able to capture this wonderful stillness.

Every time I look at this picture I am reminded that no matter how stormy things get the calm will always return; that even in darkness the natural state of things is always to be at peace.