Mardis' photostream  

[Clicking on the Getty Images Artist icon above will take you to a current listing of my images for sale at Getty.]

I've been very fortunate in life. First to have a loving and caring wife.

In addition to that, which just that would be enough in and of itself, I've been a jet pilot in the U.S. Navy, an environmental scientist for the State of California, and now have the time and resources to travel and enjoy what I love doing, taking photos and creating images (to me, those are two different things).

This gives me one of the greatest opportunities that I think a person could ever experience during our journey through life: to observe, capture, record, and sometimes create beauty. What a blessing.

It doesn't happen with each and every shot, but when it does happen, even having an image with a little dab or a small amount mixed in, it makes the effort all worthwhile, don't you think?