This is me, “the last one home”, eking out the last few rays of sunlight in search of the all elusive “perfect shot.”  Yes, I’ll admit I have a problem. I’m addicted to photography.  Mild mannered IT consultant by day; keen eyed documenter of all that surrounds me the remainder of the time.  Just like the postman, neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night will keep me from my goal.

But the question is – what to do with the byproduct of my obsession?  All of the thousands of photographs, terra bytes of data spanning multiple hard drives?  Most of it digital clutter for sure, my deepest fear is the delete key.  But what about those ‘almost’ perfect shots?  I have entered some in juried shows and contests to mixed reviews.  I’ve posted more online on Facebook and View Bug. I give them away to unsuspecting friends, who kindly cannot refuse my thoughtful gift.  However, in my mind they deserve more than this.  My photos? … Each little pieces of my heart and soul, memories of my life, products of countless hours behind a lens and in front of a computer.

The goal of this blog is to create an online journal of my journey through life.  The places I go, the things I see, the ideas and emotions behind my ‘almost’ perfect pictures.  Tomorrow I turn 51, a half century of my life on this planet is behind me.  My hope is that some day when I’m old and gray, I will look back at this journal with fondness and remember that I didn’t spend my life sitting on the couch watching TV, I went out and explored the world.  I had adventures and experiences. I stayed up hours past my bedtime, I drove around barriers, ignored “No Trespassing” signs and climbed over fences. I got off the beaten path, trudged through snow, sloshed through mud, lived my life to the fullest and had a blast doing it.

I know there are still more adventures to come, I know I will keep clicking away. But I don’t want all of those moments and memories to be hopelessly trapped in the digital wasteland.  I want for them to be organized, documented and shared.  I know in my heart I will never get that perfect shot, there will always be another one, a better one around the corner.  So it goes that I will never be satisfied, I will always be a slave to that one perfect shot waiting just outside of my reach, and to me that is the definition of addiction.