Well, i’ve spent the last six months fighting wildfires and cutting trees and brush with my trusty Stihl 460 chainsaw, named Gilbert. I’m happy to report there were no serious injuries this year, though i saw MANY close calls, and we all got on pretty well and had a good and prosperous year. We went to Alaska twice for a month total, Colorado for three weeks, and all over Oregon. One of our Alaska trips was to the Pat Creek Fire in the North Yukon Zone, not far from the Arctic Circle. To get there we took a plane to Fairbanks, another, much smaller plane to a small village north of there, and then a helicopter to the fire. Why the hell were we fighting a fire that far out in the middle of nowhere? Supposedly to protect a couple of hunting cabins, but i doubt that they were worth the 10 million dollars that was spent fighting the fire.
My plans for the winter are to get a part-time job, do some traveling, and take some photos. Erin gets February off and we’re planning on going somewhere warm and tropical, and i’m planning on taking a separate trip somewhere just for photography. I’m not sure where yet, though i’m leaning towards Peru because a friend of mine was blown away by the wildlife in Manu National Park. It sounds great, but you can’t enter a national park in Peru without a licensed guide, which i’ve never been interested in. I like to do photography alone, and it would be expensive. I didn’t win in any contests this year, but i did make it into the semi-finals in the Nature’s Best photo competition, which i’ve always liked because they put out a beautiful book each year. Someone finally won the Eric Hosking Award this year, and to my unsurprised dismay it was Bence Mate again, for the THIRD time. I was really hoping someone unknown would win it and get a kickstart to their young career, but for Bence it’s just another feather in his cap. One of the photos from his Eric Hosking portfolio also won the overall competition. It’s a great photo of leaf-cutter ants, but i’m surprised they chose it for overall winner because that usually goes to a photo with some species of megafauna as the subject.
I switched all my gear to Canon earlier this year, a painful decision, but i couldn’t stand how inaccurately the Sony A900 reproduced color. I guess i have high color standards have used Velvia film for so long. Switching systems costs a good bit of money, so i’ll try not to do it again.
As of today, the rain has begun up here in Oregon. I’m looking out the window at a dreary downpour that is so familiar to me, and i’ve only lived here a year! Erin and i are going to spend some time today in Eugene at a bookstore, going through Lonely Planet guides and escaping the fact that winter has begun.