Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL
F-stop: f/5.6
Exposure: 1/60 sec.
ISO: 125
Focal Length 55mm

One cool summer morning my mom, an avid runner, was going on her usual 6 mile route. Half way into the run her and her sister stumbled across an alien-looking life form, out of place on the cold, damp pavement. Puzzled by its identity, they ran the creature 3 miles home in a carefully cradled sweat rag. Now at home, my mom and I easily identified the fetal animal as a 3 week old baby squirrel. Unsure of its gender, I gave it the name Earl. For the next few weeks, we fed the baby a dose of puppy milk through a syringe every few hours. As the weeks went by, it grew by the gram, slowly transforming from a pink body to a fully recognizable female fox squirrel. From the torture of night feedings to its first look at the world through and open eye, we fully rehabilitated our baby to a boy-named female squirrel. "Earl the Girl Squirrel" now lives in a beautiful nest out our back door.

Now I know that was more than a few sentences, but I think it's a story worth telling.

At for the story of the photo, I found myself attempting to be "artistic" one day. After countless missed shots of a finicky pet squirrel, I snagged this photo which I found really captured the beauty of an otherwise unappreciated animal.
-Zack Kraeger