For more than a half a century, Walter Harrington, of Acton Massachusetts has dangled a camera off his shoulder hoping to capture on film what lies not far from his back door. Whether it's photographing local birds that visit his perch, the first frost in the meadow nearby, or a quaint fisherman's cottage in 'Sconset, Mr. Harrington enjoys the challenge of finding artistic beauty in everyday experiences.

"A big part of the fun is the hunt. I love to get the birds to come to me under my conditions. Their pictures almost become portraits," Mr. Harrington explained.

His earliest memories of a camera in hand began when he was 12 years old with his parents' Kodak Series III bellows camera wandering through Boston taking shots of Post Office Square and Logan Airport, or steam engines as they hissed their way into Porter Square in Cambridge. The thrills continued in the makeshift "darkroom" where he often tied up the family bathroom developing the prints.

Through the years, photography has remained his one true passion. Beyond taking images, he has dabbled with darkroom color printing, but it often proved temperamental and difficult. With the advent of digital photography and Photoshop has come renewed enthusiasm. Equipped with his Nikon D-200, Mr. Harrington feels quite at ease with today's digital technology.

"It's a technological piece that has sparked huge gains in my photography in general and has made photography very exciting to me. Overall, the new technology gives me the ability to make photography an art form," he said.