Healing Images

Here is a set I’ve collected based on a prompt from my dear friend, photographer, Rick Woods. A few years back, Rick was sharing his idea of “healing imagery.” He envisioned – and created – calming, contemplative pictures to grace the walls of healthcare facilities. I consider the idea brilliant. And as I’ve moved through the world with my camera – and through several medical procedures – I’ve noticed, captured and collected pictures that follow this theme.

This collection tends to focus where earth or water meets the sky. Many pictures seem very simple at first. But gaze a bit longer. You’ll begin to discern details that pair with light and composition to hold your attention.

As a child in a wooded corner of the Maryland suburbs, I often lay on the ground, contemplating our tall oak trees and clouds: how they stood against the rest of the sky, how they formed layers, contrast and even familiar shapes.

As an adult, I lived decades along a tidal marsh with a broad window to the sky from the thick maritime forest of the South Carolina coast. I’m equally blessed to live now, nearly 8,000 feet higher, in an alpine valley overlooking the starkly beautiful Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rockies. I’ve also worked and lived in central and western Kansas, where the horizon is often clear, stark, open to spectacular clouds that form over hundreds of prairie miles.

These places I know, along with those I continue to discover, inspire me explore a visual language to convey deeper meanings. I hope these scenes focused on simplicity in our complex world offer folks a chance to pause, look, consider, maybe even briefly escape what weighs on our minds and hearts.

Mouse over thumbnails to view captions. Click thumbnails to enlarge pictures into a slideshow you can arrow through. Press ESC to exit the slideshow. All these are available as custom prints in several different formats and media. Contact me to learn more.

A long dock with cupola and floating dock at its end extends into glassy waters reflecting a lifting fog that fades to blue sky with wispy clouds.
A morning fog lifts near Gasgoine Bluff on the May River, near Bluffton, SC.
A man in broad-brimmed hat and long sleeve shirt paddles a board with a similarly dressed child sitting on it, silhouetted in a bright spot among dark clouds over glassy water.
Michael Smith paddles with Sam and Eleanor (and Pop) in the May River, upstream from the Village at Palmetto Bluff, as storm clouds threaten a July morning.
Puffy clouds in a blue sky sit over lines of green trees and marsh and reflect in glassy waters.
Clouds and sky reflect in the May River at high tide near Bluffton, SC.
Thick clouds overhead give way to blue skies over distant mountains and reflect in morning light on the lake.
Clouds reflect in in Lake DeWeese on a fall morning near Westcliffe, CO.
Billowing thunderheads catch evening light over the ocean behind a gnarly trees on the shore.
The Atlantic Ocean meets Port Royal Sound and the marsh at Baygall Beach on the heel of Hilton Head Island, SC.
Blue sky and clouds catch the last light of the day above the orange glow of a sunset behind a line of Palmetto trees.
The sun sets behind clouds and palmetto trees atop the dunes along Folly Field Beach of Hilton Head Island, SC.
A small, round moon sits just about a line of peaks, with a wide expanse of blue sky rising toward a line of clouds.
A nearly full moon sets through a blue morning sky under a line of clouds high above the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rockies near Westcliffe, CO.
Stark shadows of curving sand dunes frame a woman with yellow backpack with black dog on lead to the right of the frame.
Pepper the dog and Janet explore Great Sand Dunes, which rise some 700 feet above Colorado’s San Luis Valley, in the shadow of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains.
An old tree with the setting sun sparkling through its leaves hangs over a dirt road that stretches across a flat agricultural landscape toward infinity.
A tree stands alone along unpaved 95th Street, a section-line road south of Wichita, KS.
Closeup of downy white feather arching upward and perfectly reflecting in brown-green water.
An egret feather floats high in the marsh of the May River near Bluffton, SC.
Red leaves lie at the base of a tree to form a street scene during walk on south Capitol Hill in Seattle.
Red leaves lie at the base of a tree to form a street scene during walk on south Capitol Hill in Seattle.
Viewed from a hillside above trees glow with fall color and reflect in a shallow lake.
Fall color shows off the roadside near Independence Pass, drawing crowds of motorists on the summer-only, narrow route between Twin Lakes and Aspen, CO.
Looking downhill at silvery aspen trunks with yellow aspen crowns in the background and green ferns turning pink and brown.
Aspens and ferns show off fall color along Ohio Creek Road, southwest of Crested Butte, CO.
The Milky Way, other stars, a few clouds and the streaks of passing airplanes fill the night sky above the dark-topped dome of Round Mountain.
The Milky Way, other stars, a few clouds and the streaks of passing airplanes fill the night sky above Round Mountain in Silver Cliff, CO.
The stars of the Milky Way glow in a smoky night sky with the silhouette of a tall aspen tree up close and mountains in the distance.
Wildfire smoke softens the view of the Milky Way and a meteor shower streaking across the sky above western Colorado’s Silver Jack Reservoir.
A native bumblebee sits atop a backlit, purple thistle flower with a blue sky and high clouds in the background.
A native bumblebee sits atop a backlit, purple thistle flower in the Antelope Canyon south of Westcliffe, CO.
Dark clouds in the sky, with sheets of rain to the right and the silhouette of mountains below sandwich a bright stripe of light from the setting sun.
Clouds and rain lick at the Sangres de Cristo range during a late-summer sunset.
A pair of distant great blue herons stand in flooding Grape Creek reflecting with peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Range in the waters above Lake DeWeese
A pair of distant great blue herons stand in flooding Grape Creek reflecting with peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Range in the waters above Lake DeWeese near Westcliffe, CO.
A blue kayak bow with a fishing rod tethered to it sits among the sharp reflection of clouds and mountain peaks in a glassy lake.
The bow of a kayak slides into the reflection of Sangre de Cristo Range in Lake DeWeese, north of Westcliffe, CO.
Streaks of sunset color rise into clouds and open sky above ridges of sand dunes framed by gnarly pines.
Piñon trees in a campground frame the sunset over Great Sand Dunes National Park. Great Sand Dunes rise in the San Luis Valley, in the shadow of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains.
The crown of an adobe arch with a small cross rising at its center stands in front of a snowy peak with clouds lit by the setting sun.
The cross atop the gate to the Mission at Mission Plaza in Westcliffe, CO, stands against an early April sunset glowing in clouds above Horn Peak and the Sangre de Cristo Range.
Two dark birds with orange breasts sit on opposite sides of the crown of a snow-covered pine against a wintery white sky.
American Robins perch and fly from snow-covered spruce tree as a storm coats Poncha Springs.
Skiers and riders take to the hill and chairlift in great conditions at Monarch Mountain.
Skiers and riders take to the hill and chairlift in great conditions at Monarch Mountain.
Clouds and sunset behind aspens on ridge.
White ibises prowl the leave litter beneath banyon trees at Howard Park and Community Garden.
Trees and a church steeple at the bottom of the frame stand silhouetted in front of a bright white mound of rising fog mirrors the shape of snow-covered Horn Peak with bluish clouds behind it.
A mound of fog catches the morning sun and rises from the Wet Mountain Valley to rival the Sangre de Cristo Range at dawn, following a March snow in Westclffe, CO.
Wispy cirrus clouds fan up into a blue sky as a lone wood stork soars toward the right of the frame.
An endangered wood stork flies into a cloud-streaked sky over the May River near Bluffton, SC.
A dramatic orange sunset reflects in layers and mounds of clouds, with the glow of lightning within the lower clouds amd black fingers of clouds at the top right of the frame.
Thunderstorms and associated cloud formations reflect a glowing sunset over the Wet Mountains and Valley east of Westcliffe, CO.
A sunset reflects in clouds over Westcliffe, CO, and the Wet Mountain Valley.

Website © 2026 Gregory Smith; all content © Gregory Smith, all rights reserved.