An airless muggy morning has given way an early August squall as it moves up the Big Hole Valley from the south. I can feel its approach as the wind picks up rustling the small aspen trees around our cabin. We are rather exposed to the weather as we reside about hundred feet above the valley floor with little to shelter us from the southern winds. Since we are at 6,100 ft, the weather can get brutal at times. Our spot provides a panoramic view of the Big Hole River, the ranch land surrounding us and the Anaconda-Pintler range which acts as the western border to the Big Hole.

Since it is early August, the ranchers have finished their haying in preparation for winter and the cattle will have another month or so before they are moved to a lower elevation.

As I watch the squall move in with its rain and occasional lightning, filling the sky with its energy there is nothing to block to the sky, the valley and the mountains which seemed to go on forever.

For me, one of the reasons that I love photography is in moments like this when one witnesses something so beautiful and wonderous that one wants to capture the essential elements so that one can recall the time and place, the coolness of the air, the press of the wind and the expanse of the scene.

There is no magic to the image. I am shooting a Mamiya 645 with the Kodak DCR645 back with a Mamiya 55-110 f/4.5 zoom. Even today, I think that Kodak back was one of the best digital cameras I have owned. It just produced lovely results. So I plant myself on our porch and try to do justice to the scene that is evolving before me.