"A Disney Dream"

This is a photo of my kids (daughter Monica, left, age 7.5 at the time, and son Hadleigh, right, aged 5) as I found them one morning.... We were sailing aboard the Disney Dream Cruiseship heading towards an Island in the Bahamas on a holiday of a lifetime.

I woke up early one morning and peaked in through the curtains separating our bed from the kids' bunks and saw that they had beaten me to it and were up already.... but sitting quietly gazing out at the sunrise over the ocean as we approached the island.

They were daydreaming and whispering softly to each other about how beautiful the view was.... It was a moment, a split-second decision, before they sensed me there and turned around... before the moment was lost forever... I slowly, tentatively, quietly as I could reached for my camera, knelt down and captured it!... Their silouettes making it unlike any other photo i've ever snapped on holiday!... Their stillness, no posing or smiling required, their messy looks not important - with the mickey mouse still upside down in my son's clutches and both wearing their pj's and bedhead hair ... I will treasure this moment forever.

A split second later they turned around, saw me, jumped up to say good-morning and the moment was over. They told me to come and look out of the porthole and pointed across the ocean showing me what they could see. Camera off. Camera put down. Joining them to gaze out the window....

It was only when we returned home from the holiday and uploaded this image onto our laptop and saw it on the larger computer screen - and then when friends and family commented on it - that I realised how well I'd managed to record this special moment (!) and as an amateur who enjoys clicking away and trying hard to get a shot but more just "hoping for the best" I was absolutely thrilled.

Everyone who has seen it since have been urging me to enter it into a competition... I googled and found yours which seemed so appropriate as its "lovers of light"!.... So here it is! I hope you like it :).... I feel that the lighting in this photo is powerful - the silhouettes of my kids and mood of the morning sky - the kids were feeling that energy too at the time.

My parents, my inlaws and us all have it as a canvas on our walls... The various lighting of our different houses/rooms and as the day turns into night casts all sorts of perspectives on it and so it keeps changing throughout the day - which we all love!....but the essence never changes - our kids were living the Disney dream... enjoying sharing a moment daydreaming together.... we felt so privileged to have been able to take them on this holiday... but no amount of DisneyWorld characters and fairytales can beat the pure beauty of the nature that is our World.

Thanks for taking the time to read the above description - sorry for lack of brevity but I just wanted to get the story behind it across to you.... what others might see in this image I feel is endless, and timeless.

Date - 29 April 2013
Location - Out on the Ocean, approaching the Bahamas, aboard the Disney Dream cruiseship (on holiday).