A new photography habit of mine began the day I went on my Arnold Arboretum walk back in July. While I was there, I began taking all these really close-up pictures of trees and plants, and over the course of the rest of the day (and the course of my trip to the Chihuly exhibit later that week at the MFA) I continued getting very close up with the objects I was surrounded by.

I think what fascinates me is the way we don’t pay attention to them. That is a running theme in a lot of my pictures, and certainly part of my photography philosophy: we go by so much every single day, we pass so many stimuli, but it’s only when we stop to look closely that we really begin to discover the world for what it is. So I present to you (without further pretention), a selection of pictures from right up against objects we take for granted. Click through for the rest of the selection, and click here for the full set.

Tom