Ways of Seeing

The Cascades from Double Bluff on Whidbey Island

There are lots of ways to go local. As I've been discovering on my recent walkabouts, having a camera along offers an additional way of seeing where we are with fresh eyes. I'm no pro, and my camera is nothing special, but it is a window into what Mary Oliver calls "the untrimmable light of the world".

I recently was introduced to a fellow Northwest explorer and photographer named Kurt Smith, who does this on a serious level, producing amazing photographs that probe the beauty that lies all around us here in the Puget Sound region. He anchors his images in some darn good stories, too, that follow the changing Northwest seasons near his home in Kingston. Check out his blog at Seeing Small: A Photographer's Journal of the Everyday.