Puget Island youth finds photo calling

Puget Island resident Teddy Townsend won the 2016 Coast Weekend Photo Contest. He also got a Top 10 Honorable Mention.

"It feels pretty good," he said.

Townsend is a soft spoken young man, the seventh of eight kids homeschooled by Blake and Diane Townsend.

"On summer nights he takes his bike and goes riding all over to take star trails," Diane said.

It was a star trail/self portrait that garnered the CW award for Townsend.

"I'd pictured that picture," Townsend said. "I'd been trying to get a shot of myself like that for a while. If you go in the summer when it's really dark, like 12 or 1 in the morning."

The picture was a 30 second exposure, taken with a self timer on Ohrberg's Beach. Townsend had scrambled up the sand dunes more than once to try and get a good shot.

Townsend took up photography a couple years ago after a couple older brothers showed an interest in it. One of his brothers gave him a point and shoot, but he's graduated to a Canon 6D, which he took time to study.

"I think it's really important to become familiar with your camera," Townsend said.

He prefers to take landscape and nature pictures. And like most anyone that picks up a camera, he acknowledges that it has changed his perspective to light.

"I make sure the lighting is right," Townsend, "And I look around."

He's spent a lot of time taking pictures around the county, mostly on the island. He also took some great pictures on a trip to Hawaii.

Some of those photos are for sale at Tsuga Gallery, where at 18, he is already a member. He's off to a good start too, having sold three pictures.

He had to order some more prints and frames last week after he got a call from the gallery, "You've got a blank wall!"

One of Townsend's immediate goals is to get his driver's license. There is a lot to see in the Northwest, a lot more pictures to take.

Townsend also enjoys skateboarding and playing the guitar "a little bit."

"He plays the guitar a lot," his mom corrected, obviously proud.

Teddy and his family moved here from Chinook three years ago.