One of the takeaway points at my SoMeT blogging/content presentation was to spend more time focusing on the small details of your destination. Look at the world through a mental soda straw to shed light on the unique and interesting, rather than only writing list posts (“Top 10 Beaches” blah blah) or broad overviews.

This photo is to illustrate the concept.

It was taken with a Canon PowerShot point-and-shoot camera, but using the Macro (close-up) mode, which can do some really fun stuff for you.

It is part of the patterned door of an antique pie safe at Clyde’s Willow Creek Farm, a unique restaurant and tavern in Broadlands, Virginia which is part of the Washington, DC area’s wine country (and a big thank you, preservationists for keeping our history alive in such places.)

See the poked-up holes?

Those are made by sticking a nail through the thin metal to make decorative patterns that also provide ventilation for the pies stored on shelves within.

Can you now imagine someone laboriously doing that by hand a long time ago….poke-poke-poke, but always with design in mind, like the paisley swirl detail seen in the photo?  It brings joy to an everyday piece of furniture while also serving a purpose.

Takeaway from this:   Soda straw. Get super-close. Use your camera’s Macro setting. Find those little miniature landscapes that tell a story.

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