I did it!

I have to tell you the back story on this one:

Way back in about 1989, when I first started taking pictures with my trusty Minolta X-370 camera, I was telling people how I wanted to be in magazines. I would go out almost daily and try to photograph the nature around my country home in Northeast Texas.

One day, my Dad - who just got a subscription to Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine - was showing me some pictures of the Monahans Sand Dunes in far West Texas. Pointing to the magazine, he said, "When you can get some pictures in this magazine, you've done something!"

So I set forth to do just that.

If you've never seen Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine, you have to check it out. It is a great magazine that covers all aspects of the Texas outdoors like camping, birding, hunting, fishing, and everything else that's Texas.

In 1993, I had my first article and photo published in the magazine. In 1999, I had my first photo essay. Since then my work has steadily appeared in the pages of the magazine and two months ago, my work was validated when the staff put my name on the masthead as a contributing writer and photographer.

Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine has always been my "National Geographic." It is the publication that I set my sights on as a young photographer of only 19 years. It is great that things have turned out the way they have.