The albino deer

I was out enjoying nature late in the day, taking photographs with my camera. I was in a meadow of tall grass about 10 yards away from the forest. The grass was 3 feet tall or so, and I had just snapped a few pictures, accidentally leaving the camera on. I was simply walking through the tall grass.


I heard a clicking noise down by the camera hanging off my shoulder, and recognized it as the sound of the lens cap falling off. I’m in 3 feet of grass and realized that finding the cap in such circumstances might prove difficult. As I bent over and began to part the tall grass to search, I was thinking what an annoyance it will be to have to order a new cap.


With my head bent low in the grass searching for the camera lens cap, I felt eyes upon me. Without standing full and tall, I simply raised my head slightly in the direction I felt I was being watched…


SIDE BAR: The place I was walking happened to be located at a Summer Camp I worked at in central Virginia. I had been there for several years and had heard rumors surrounding the myth of the albino deer living in the forests. There had been fleeting glimpses at dusk on rare occasion of a white shadowy creature bounding out of view in the distance… but no one has ever concretely confirmed the existence of such a creature.

Now back to our story….

With my head bent low in the grass searching for the camera lens cap, I felt eyes upon me. Without standing full and tall, I simply raised my head slightly in the direction I felt I was being watched. As I raised my head I also raised my camera, which as fate would have it happened to be on, and currently sans a lens cap. There at the edge of the forest 10 yards from me stood a fascinatingly beautiful albino deer, almost shining against the dark backdrop of the forest’s depths. As soon as the shutter clicked, she nodded her head, turned, and disappeared in one leap back into the darkness of the forest.

She had allowed me not only to greet her, but take her picture.  Heartfelt gratitude for such a magical moment!  That was about 10 years ago. I hadn’t thought much about it until recently. Thanks to some folks from Coyote Trails, I am being encouraged to develop a deeper rapport with nature, and the albino deer photograph now belongs to a friend who has been apart of that.

My new Web Site, WaterBetweenStones and The White Deer fund are also now a part of the story.  She has not only encouraged me to use my camera to get closer to nature, but help others do so as well.