The country sure is beautiful in this area. I took this picture just north of where I work back a couple of months ago when the wheat fields were golden. Summer is gone. I don't feel like I took as much advantage of the area as I could of. I had hoped to get out a bunch.

Ah well... no use having regrets. I am looking forward to winter (but not the cold). Nice thing about the area is that it doesn't go totally grey. I noticed last winter when I took that train ride to visit my brother Chris and his family, how much of a contrast there was between the evergreen country and the grey Minnesota and Illinois areas. I am hoping to get a bunch of snowy landscape pics and the like.

Haven't been taking that many pictures over the past month. The weather has been very bland. I missed the week or so of leaves turning. It was colorful and beautiful, but I just didn't feel the urge to pull out the camera.

Starting to feel like taking pictures again. I am waiting for a good opportunity and some good light. I am back to carrying my camera with me everywhere. Feels good to do that... though I think it hovers that border of being a dedicated artist and a male tourist type fellow (ie gadget man). I try to keep it simple. Sometimes I wonder why I didn't study photography exclusively when I was in college. I took a lot of photography classes and spent a ton of time in the dark rooms. I love it so much. Its about being out there and in it. It my two favorite things rolled into one, hiking and art.

I want to get used to shooting people more and not just landscapes. I need to get more comfortable with it. Living in a inner city for years, I got in the habit of not being overly friendly to people on the street and avoiding too much contact. I think to get into doing street photography, I would have to gain back some of that small town mentality I grew up with.