Using the East End of Long Island as a backdrop, Ellen Watson’s photography revels in the juxtaposition of varied textures, celebrates the richness of earth’s colors, and showcases the magic of natural light. Watson says she finds inspiration in “every seed in the dirt, every stalk on the plant, every vein in every leaf.” Her images often feature glimpses into the local farming industry, communicating an exact moment in the journey of food from farm to table. “I am drawn to the land by something stronger than I can explain,” Watson says, “so I just continue to pursue it and document it and hope that some of the images will strike a bit of interest in my viewers.” Indeed, viewers are immediately drawn into a scene that becomes real, all senses engaged. Here, the pale brown of a speckled egg: it is still warm, just picked up. Here, a yellow-shirted farmer, tending her rows: the hum of cicadas, the smell of the soft brown dirt, the heat of the beating sun. And here, done for the day, a tractor sits silent: behind it the world is split in two—the ground, lined by flourishing vegetables into infinity in either direction and the smooth expanse of the sky, blue, delicately clouded, dousing everything in the region’s famous light.

—The Editors