Zer Zahav is the "pen name" David Sears uses as a photographer. I've been taking these photos mainly around the neighborhood in which my wife and I live, which is the Midwood section of Flatbush (Brooklyn), and on the wooded grounds of our three-room log cabin in the northern Catskills.

The stains, cracks, paint spatters, leaves, puddles and other sights we see all around us every day are a kind of abstract art, although they are all evident in this tangible world. Yet when viewed a certain way, they become evocative of all sorts of things -- like the images created through drawing and painting.

Some other favorite subjects are shadows, mists, clouds, landscapes, and the gallery I called "Still Lifes," which is a sort of grab bag of photos of various objects.