The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words – Elliot Erwitt.

An able photographer would convey that the tadpoles’ shallow pool was but a small sample of roadways flooded by early-summer storms that inundated the U.S. heartlands that season, leaving destruction and yet, yes, life, in such unlikely nurseries.

An able photographer would also capture that, had the roadway not been closed to any but foot and bicycle traffic, the first speeding SUV or ATV would have shattered the nurturing stillness, displacing the embryonic frogs long before their metamorphosis.

In sum, an able photographer would communicate the complete, compelling story … in a single exposure.

But, knowing that it can be done is not the same as knowing how.

And so, I resort, as always, to words. Pace Mr. Erwitt, I enjoy stories shared by words as much as I do those captured in images.

Limited though the photo is, it’s still one of my favorites from that year. A microcosm of tranquility, glimpsed where and when least expected.