Over the past 20 years Spinski has learned that he’s most passionate about depicting things “on the edges of appreciation” that we see but pay little attention to. For a recent project, he spent three years photographing vernal pools, seasonal bodies of water that vary in size from a puddle to a pond. These networks of ephemeral pools are like “neural hubs” of a forest from which “life sort of blooms out,” he says. “To me, now, the puddle in the forest is essential”—a discovery that also taught him about the fascinating stories one can find in their own backyard.