Too many times I have gone on a fall photo trip in hopes of the ideal fall picture in the perfect conditions. But it is not so easy. I've arrived too early for peak colors or I have been in the ideal spot a week too late. It has rained. The wind has howled like a gale, the kind that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald. I've been too tired sometimes even to see it, right in front of my face.

But I have learned to stop, look, take a deep breath, and enjoy. Put the camera up to your eye, or place it on the tripod. Compose. Click the shutter. And do it again. And do it all again next year. And forget about the ideal and the perfect. And just photograph what you see. Ain't it amazing! And aren't you glad!

This is Door County, Wisconsin. With my good friend, Mike Eischen standing right next to me. That's perfect.