TOPSFIELD — It is easy to find peace at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. There is a natural silence hard to find these days, and the meadows and forests seem to go on forever.
Eric Whiting, a Masconomet High School senior, has been coming here all of his life, but in the last few years he has been seeing the sanctuary in a different way — through the lens of his Nikon D-40.
"There's no studio," Whiting said, describing the art of photographing nature. "It's everywhere you look. It's about finding the shot."
A photo exhibition featuring a dozen of Whiting's works will be put on display beginning this Friday in the sanctuary's program barn and remain up for the winter.
Though he has been an avid photographer for years, Whiting has just started studying photography at school this fall. In this class, he's learning about the magic of Photoshop, a program he'd never used before, and has been experimenting with digitally manipulating his photos.
For one photo, he took a landscape he shot recently and placed a 3-D orb on top of it, creating the magnified look of a fisheye lens. The landscape now looks like "its own little world," perfectly contained inside a bubble.
All of the photos Whiting chose to put in the exhibition are from recent years. He wouldn't even think of putting up a photo from four years ago, the quality just isn't up to his standards any more.
"I'm constantly learning," Whiting said. "I can see my photos progress."
Whiting has been exploring the sanctuary for years, with his friends, and on his own, though he prefers to visit with friends, and has started to include them in his work. He appreciates the sanctuary for the natural beauty and the endless trails, where you can go exploring for half an hour or half a day.
"There's no human pollution," Whiting said. "It's so calm, it brings out the pure side of people."
When asked which places were his favorites in the sanctuary, Whiting described the watch tower and the rock grotto but wouldn't reveal his absolute favorites.
"I can't tell you," Whiting said, just before letting out an explosive laugh. "Then they wouldn't be secret."
The reception will be Friday, Nov. 6, from 6 to 8 p.m., and the gallery will be open Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
