April 15, 2008 – A pastor told me recently that he likes working in the country because we can get closer to life and death up here, and I think that is so. I love the timeless rituals around the country – plowing sileage, haying, and the stinky, dirty, rich and eternal sense of the farm.
  Every photo is a story, not only of the subject, but of the photographer and the choices he or she makes – the shot, the light, the angle, the settings, and is as revealing of the person behind the camera as the one on the other side.
  I saw this farmer working in this vast field, patiently plowing up one side, down the other and drove past, then turned around, then pulled over and waved to him, to give him a chance to yell at me or shoot at me. He waved and nodded, a signal to go ahead, and I started shooting )16-35 mm and I decided I wanted to get the dust, which is in his face all day, and then to switch it to black and white, because color isn’t a factor here, and black and white evokes tradition sometimes.
  I stood out there for a half-hour and took a bunch of pictures, and didn’t quite get the one I wanted, but I like this okay. Better to have used the landscape lens and captured a better sense of the space and sky. I love all the rapid-fire choices I have to make.