View From My Window

For the past few years, I've been a regular reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog at The Atlantic. Andrew's political and social analysis is top notch, and though I don't always agree with everything he writes, I am always impressed by his thought provoking articles and the discussions his blog fosters.

Back in May 2006, Sullivan began a daily feature on his site that he called The View From Your Window. Originally started as a week-long experiment of reader submitted photos, the project quickly became a favorite of regular readers and has continued on ever since. Per his blog, here is the goal of this daily feature:

The point of the project is not to document snow fall in New Orleans, the aftermath of a hurricane in the South Pacific, or a beautiful sunset in the Arizona desert. The best window views are those depicting what you see everyday when you look outside. So show us - and every other reader - your world. Don't pretty it up; just show it as it is - a glimpse through the looking glass of a blog, at the world its readers live in.

This is really all it is - an opportunity for people to get brief looks into the daily lives of others throughout the world. Ultimately, this feature has been so successful, that last year it was turned into a book.

Anyway, what is the relevance for Smith in Israel? Our team has a pretty amazing view from our place in Haifa, so earlier this past week I submitted a photograph taken from the top window of our team's house to Andrew's blog. I really didn't think it had much of a chance to make the cut. Yet, lo-and-behold, out of the many hundreds of photos received daily, he selected mine for his Thursday post!

"The view from my window"
Photo by Daniel Branscome

Though my photo goes uncredited on his site (as are all other photos submitted to this feature) I think its still pretty cool that the Smith team's view of the world - at least for 9 weeks this summer - got to be shared in this way.