When the Painted Bunting, a songbird described as “incomparably beautiful” on ebird.org, made a rare appearance at the Maryland side of Great Falls, devoted birders didn’t hesitate to flock to the Maryland park. Enduring freezing temperatures and armed with binoculars and cameras, their frenzied search was rewarded with sightings of the bird throughout the month of January. However, when my family and I visited the park in February, instead of seeing a Painted Bunting, we instead saw a lot of ducks and bluebirds. Nonetheless, although I wasn’t at all surprised by the types of birds there, I was definitely fascinated by what I saw — the white-tipped feathers of the (mostly blue) bluebird, the stateliness of a common vulture’s shadow, the comical expressions ducks are capable of making — though it was probably due to my absolute inexperience in birdwatching, I was overall very pleasantly surprised. However, this type of response from me didn’t just occur with the birds- it happened with many other frequently unnoticed, subtle details.

As its title suggests, the aim of my photo essay is to capture the overlooked details that are too often dismissed as unimportant, irrelevant, and/or insignificant. With that being said, I hope you find as much simple beauty in these details as I did that day at Great Falls.