This is the first photo I’ve ever taken of a deer. I have to be honest,  I don’t care for deer. The are, to me, the rats of the natural world, tick-bearing pests who are plain and not especially interesting. I am in a minority in this. Most of the great spiritual writers love deer, their simplicity and vulnerability. My wife is fond of them.  Thomas Merton spend hours just watching them and reveling in what he saw as their spirituality.

I see dozens, sometimes hundreds of deer every week, but on the new farm, they are visible every day, they come out behind the farmhouse to graze in the woods and open fields. I saw this one grazing out through the woods – I saw the donkeys staring at her, and I was carrying my big lens, the 300 mm and was drawn to capture this very pastoral and quieting scene. How do you photograph something you don’t like?,” I wondered. Simply, I thought, simply. There is something beautiful to me about this image. So today, I took my first photo of a deer.