Ferry Beach
December 24, 2004 | 4 p.m.

The sun was going down rapidly when I took this shot on the beach in Maine. I didn't want to use a flash and distort the actual colors of the shells and rocks, so it's a bit blurry. I never appreciated the beauty of shells until I started looking at this and other photographs from that crisp, snowless Christmas Eve months later. When you grow up on the ocean, you tend to take for granted all the beauty it holds.