Michael Zide grew up without seasons. He remembers being transfixed as a child by a snowfall in his hometown of Los Angeles, a magical moment that made a deep impact on his life. When he began to pursue an interest in photography at age 22, he found himself drawn to the changing seasons and their impact on the landscape of the East Coast.

“I moved to Massachusetts because I became enthralled with a few photographers who specialized in East Coast landscape photography,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “It had this allure for me. The grass is always greener, I suppose.”

In fact, the grass in California is probably quite a bit greener than ours after a long winter. Nonetheless, Mr. Zide settled into a caretaking job at a house on Martha’s Vineyard, the Island he would call home for the next 13 years. After a lifetime of perpetual sunshine, he was ill-equipped to face a blustery Vineyard winter. To arm himself against the elements, he invested in a pair of thigh-high fireman’s boots. “That was my winter attire,” he laughed. “They kept me dry and they kept me semiwarm. I was never really warm my first year on the Vineyard.”

Still, his fireman’s boots enabled him to wade into the ocean off the shore of Aquinnah to capture a unique shot of the water. “My perspective was a little bit different from other photographers because I was in the water instead of on the shore,” he recalled. It was a moment indicative of his photography career. More than three decades later, he has made a name for himself by capturing ordinary images from extraordinary perspectives, and creating artwork that is a product of his life experience.

The photo of Aquinnah will be displayed alongside several other Island images in Mr. Zide’s photography exhibit at Nye Gallery in Oak Bluffs. The collection also includes photos taken off-Island. Musings and Metaphors: The Evolution of Personal Vision, begins with an artist’s reception tonight at 7 p.m.

The theme of the show revisits his early interest in the seasons, particularly winter.

“What interests me most in photography are the points of connection, where you really see common things and hopefully see them in new ways,” said Mr. Zide. “What I really want to do is find the mystery in the landscape, the metaphor. Because you’re always talking about yourself. All of your pictures should be a reflection of who you are.”

According to Mr. Zide, his art is a very reflective and contemplative process. “You take your time. You look, and you compose, and you think,” he said. His editorial photography has appeared in the Vineyard Gazette. Though he considers his work to be the opposite of photojournalism, he admits that he’s counted on both methods at different times.

“I was a staff photographer for [another] newspaper for many years,” he recalled with a guilty smile. “I actually took pictures for them using a pseudonym. It was all about my art. I didn’t want the world to realize that I was moonlighting, trying to work for a living, and not simply thinking cerebral, lofty thoughts.”

Mr. Zide’s perspective has changed a bit since then. Today, he lives in Amherst and teaches full-time at Hallmark Institute of Photography.

Likewise he has come to terms with the shift to digital photography, though he admits that he stalled as long as possible. A former student, Jim Roselli, assisted him in printing many of the images for this show. He also has sponsorship, the result of a predicament he found himself in while visiting New Mexico.

“I was lost . . . and had to be rescued,” he explained. He’d purchased an expensive tripod, which he dragged through the frozen sand as he was searching for a photo subject. It was the middle of winter, quite cold; he’d taken his dogs along. Eventually he realized he was lost, but he refused to leave the tripod behind.

“I figured I wasn’t going to make it out of there, and [the dogs would] probably eat me, and that would be great so they wouldn’t go hungry,” he laughed. Luckily, a ranger tracked him down, rescuing Mr. Zide, his dogs, and the brand new tripod.

“I’m now sponsored by Bogen Imaging, who distributes Gitzo tripods, because of that mini misadventure,” said Mr. Zide.

“You turn the strangest things in life into whatever you can.”

As he spoke, Mr. Zide kept busy transferring his evocative black and white framed prints from a van into neat piles inside Nye Gallery in preparation for tonight’s show. He seemed thrilled to be back on the Vineyard, comfortable in an atmosphere that is familiar to him, and significant to his career.

“This is really where I grew and developed as a photographer,” he said. “In a way it was like being in my own backyard for 13 years. And it was really getting to know what home was for me.”

Nye Gallery on Uncas avenue in Oak Bluffs hosts a reception for Mr. Zide tonight from 7 to 10 p.m.

He will present the Tuesday night art lecture at Featherstone Center for the Arts on July 21 at 7 p.m.