The summer of my freshman year in high school we lived outside a small town in central Nebraska, about a mile from a golf course that had fairways as hard as rock. I could hit a 250-yard drive, easy, even with my scrawny arms. Of course, the ball rolled for about 200 of those yards.

So I took lessons from the course pro, an old codger of a guy whose face looked a lot like the dirt on the course, crusty and weathered. He'd tell me: "Don't you watch how I golf, just let me show you how you should golf."

A good lesson. In spite of that lesson, I'm going to show some of the photos I made that just came out in the current issue of MIX magazine here in Portland. Making pictures is a gift. MIX assignments are dream jobs, coming from editor Martha Holmberg. Reed Darmon, the designer, is equally fabulous to work with. The format is 10 x 12 inches, to give you a sense of how well the photos are displayed.

The cover image connects to a story about five dishes that include mushrooms and the spread is about a wonderful couple who gather and grow mushrooms through their business, the Mushroomery. In case you'll wonder, the mushrooms on the opening spread are angel's wings, on the second spread are pink oyster mushrooms growing on the farm and a choral mushroom they harvested, then on the following spread Dustin is holding a fried chicken mushroom cluster he just plucked.