Most of my work, it's all about the ecology.

It's also about place.

Not in the sense of only what's around it, but also, I try and think about the location, the history of the place.

I try and make sure that place is part of the story.

To walk into the western wilderness of the North Cascade Range is to become immersed.

In the lush lowland forest, the evergreen scent, the bright understory of ferns floating above a moss carpet.

Here, mushrooms sprout up lik tiny signposts, signaling a vast underground network known as the Wood Wide Web.

Photographer Melinda Hurst Frye grew up exploring these woods — and St.

Edward State Park, a patch of deep green on Lake Washington in Kenmore.

Hurst Frye ' s parents built a home abutting the park in the late 80s.

She remembers traversing the trails and observing the seasonal shifts as a child.

Now Hurst Frye lives in the same home with her own children and continues to seek out signals from the local ecosystem.

The reason I work with mushrooms is more than it being about mushrooms.

It's more about the cycle, and more about this visual evidence of the cycle.

- Okay.

- I think it's a shorthand for what is happening on the forest floor.

The mycelium grows through the soil, and as it does that, it collects into this flower and it releases its spores for more mycelium to root themselves and continue the process.

You say you're not a mycologist, but you sound like a mycologist.

- Part of my work is taking the sciences and transitioning what is happening into something visual to tell the story.

Fascinated by fungi, Hurst Frye uses flatbed scanners to captur mushrooms, mycelium, and spores.

Low-tech but high resolution, the scanners showcase both the beauty of her forest finds and their crucial role in regeneration.

So, scanners.

- Yeah.

- Kind of like fax machines.

A little, old school technology.

How did you come to the scanner as your tool of choice?

- I started using them more when I was teaching photography, to encourage my students to try alternative image making, just to see, like what happens if you use a camera versus what happens if you use a scanner?

The scanner has this sort of weird perspective and light that I'm really into.

It feels very much like you're painting in the sense that you're composing on the glass.

The spores release from the mushroom and then settle back onto the glass, and the camera doesn't give that to me.

I really like that punk rock part of this where this is not how you're supposed to use the technology, but as an artist you get to.

- Yeah.

In her studio, Hurst Frye acts as part botanist, part still-life photographer — carefully composing forest floor bouquets that are already in the process of decomposition, telling stories of seasonal change.

In the field, I'm usually holding the scanner in place, and so that all there is to do is just look around and see what is crawling and who's making noise around you.

So you're just forced to look and just listen.

- So when you're listening, what are you hearing?

- I'm hearing the relationships typically, and that's what I'm looking for.

What relationships are there?

In the spring, I met with Hurst Frye again to see how she uses the scanners in the wild — in this case, the Skykomish Ranger District about an hour east of her home.

She's drawn to this area in the Cascade foothills because it's in the process of regeneration, after a human-caused wildfire burned nearly 15,000 acres.

I come back here not to focus on the trauma of the fire, but to look at how the forest is coming back.

First, I need to decide what's the visual story and what are the markers of that.

And then it's very much slow walking and just cataloging what I'm seeing.

Scouting is an important part of Hurst Frye's process.

She heads into the woods, stands still, and slows her mind.

Like staring into a tidepool, tiny plants and creatures suddenly become apparent.

She zooms in, looks closer, and chooses her spot.

All right.

What are we seeing around this stump?

- So this stump was probably logged 100 years ago.

And all of this char is from the recent Bolt Creek fire.

- Okay.

- But it's still delivering its nutrients and recycling everything it has back into the soil to help all these bigleaf maple seedlings grow, including this seedling.

Oh, and there's another one.

Oh, good.

I love to see that.

I'm going to put this up against this stump.

Sometimes the scanners are okay with being at a little bit of an angle.

Your job is going to be to hit “Scan.” Okay.

- It's such a simple thing of just holding it up, but sometimes for the time it takes to hold it, you can't let it move.

- That sounds very challenging!

- And so if it moves then we start all over again.

But I'll just try and keep it really still.

- The bar is moving across very slowly.

- I know, it takes forever.

I hope this part gets sped up.

I can't tell if it's centered, but we'll find out.

And at this moment, I'm just going to take a few things out, so this guy can really be like a standalone little star in the middle.

Let's see, as long as it's touching.

It needs to be touching.

Hurst Frye's forest images are less curated than her studio work, still artful, but more documentary.

She says she enjoys the mental shift of this slow process — the patience, presence and perseverance it requires.

It is so special to be able to take these small little shapes and flowers and textures and colors and let the viewer be able to really come into them in a way that doesn't break down.

Having these moments of being able to see them gives the viewer the chance to have a little bit of wonder and a little discovery, and an avenue to stewardship as well, to come out here and think about all of the systems that are happening.

With her photographs, Hurst Frye highlights the power of tiny wonders rooted in the forest floor.

Her work also reminds us of ou own role in the natural cycle, as observers, participants and stewards.

Art by Northwest was made possible in part with the support of Visit Bellingham, Whatcom County.