In Doing The Small Things With Love — Donna Hopkins

*Wakefield, Virginia | Sammy, The Fishing Dog | August 2025*

*Westmoreland State Park | Fossil Beach | August 2025*

*Potomac Beach | Wakefield, Virginia | August 2025*

A few lines from a favorite poem, The Forgotten Corners by Jeff Foster.

Enlightenment isn’t an escape.
It’s seeing, really seeing,
what’s right in front of you.
It’s staying.
Even when it’s uncomfortable.
Even when it’s brutally mundane.
There’s holiness in every breath.
In doing the small things with love.
In the life you already have.

*Westmoreland State Park | Looking for Shark’s Teeth | August 2025*

I took all of these photographs with my Pentax 645, using up a roll of Kodak Portra 400 film. They are not my best work. And that’s okay. They are the practice that encourages those long exhales in a messy life.