Maria loves this picture of me in my bathroom, 11 degrees, in my bathrobe and Beanie. She usually gets up before me and feeds the animals. If the weather is freezing, I’m not supposed to go out. We have an arrangement: if the sun is out or rising in front of the pasture – among my favorite photos – she texts me, and I hop out of bed and rush down and slip into battered old slippers, grab my camera, and rush out.

There, I go into a trance, checking the camera settings and focusing carefully on my pictures. I go into a trance here as I try to figure them out. Maria says she captured that focus in the pictures, and this, she said, was one of her favorites.

Like many people my age, I don’t love having my picture taken; it sometimes hurts, and I’m working on it. But I take other people’s pictures all the time, and it’s not right to be hypocritical. There is no hiding when you live with a gifted artist or, I suppose, an obsessive photographer. I do like the photo.