DAMN do it miss that.

I really like how you captured both the extraordinary and mundane all in one picture. What I mean is your photograph is filled with contrasts with the sunlight poking through the menancing clouds. The hearing aids sign and the business in the background seems quite different from the rural area in the background. Also, seeing it is interesting to see how one half of the road in your shot looks like a small town road whereas the other half looks like it is a super highway.

This photograph is neat with there being so many things going on if one looks hard enough.

Further in the background, you can see a spire in the forest- just jutting up in-between the end of the highway- and kinda in the middle of the hovel between the hills. That spire is actually a church tower from Fort Scott, Kansas- seventeen miles away, across the border.

Again, thanks for the comment! I take any tips, criticism, praise, etc that I can get.

Wow, I totally missed the church spire! Gosh, that is even cooler that you are nearby the border with another State, too.

Was this photograph taken with a cell phone camera, or was it done with a tradtional camera?

I have a Nikon Easyshare- just a cheap digital. Can't adjust the focus or the zoom much, but the picture size is large- at 14.1 MP. My elder images have been taken with my cellphone. I don't have the money for a nicer DSLR. I need it for college.

http://imageshack.us/a/img12/2057/1000758go.jpg <- Here is the image non-resized.

Nikon cameras are very good, and for your purposes that is all you need because you have some pretty good quality shots. Even your cellular photographs are quite good. I think the myth folks have is that they need to purchase a camera with all the bell and whistles when in reality the standard point and shot camera will work for most people. Obviously, the professional photographers and those majoring in photography are going to need the fancy stuff which is understandable.

I like your work, and you are doing a very good job with your shots.

Thank you. That honestly means a lot to me.

No problem, and I am sure once you are out of school and get into whatever job for which you are studying you can definitely upgrade. At least you have an eye for picking out good scenes which is critical in photography. A person can have the best camera and studio in the world, but if he/she cannot get the right scene at the perfect time, then a photograph is meaningless. One only has to think about the famous photojournalists over time and how through one image they were able to tell a whole story which it seems you are doing with your images.

I am not sure how far Overland Park, KS is from where you are, but due to the bankruptcy of Ritz/Wolf Camera their camera stock is being liquidated. If you are looking for some good deals on a quality camera, then you might want to check them out before they are gone. I think with your interest in photography such a trip might be worth it for you especially if you get a good deal.

My greatest moment was being in the 2011 Joplin tornado and its' recovery. During that time, I think, is when I picked out the eye that sort of thing. I watch breaking news all the time- all the videos and photographs. The phenomenon fascinates me. To be there is something else. I thought to myself what it would have been like to capture those images.

Thank for the intel- I was already planning to go Kansas City next weekend. I believe I can make a detour for such a thing. I appreciate it.

Oh yeah, the Joplin tornado was a great example of where a photojournalist could tell a lot of stories just from a bunch of images. Going through the photographs from AP, Reuters, CNN, etc. it was amazing how much one photograph could tell a reader faraway about a person's life and how the tornado tore it apart. Is photojournalism was you are studying at school?

Yeah, I hope you find good deals. While I am not a fan of going out of business sales in general sometimes one can find gems hidden in the pile if one is patient. I think Ritz/Wolf was planning on closing for a while because for the last couple of months I had gotten some awesome stuff from them in their clearance section for pennies on the dollar. I had gotten this one photographer's coat which was weather resistent for only $10 when it was retailing for like $100! The jacket really works because the water beads right off of it which works out great in bad weather here in Chicagoland!

If this helps you out any, sometimes the major retailers such as Sears, Best Buy, etc. actually have good stuff, too, in their clearance sections if you have the time to look through them. I have gotten some really good stuff over the years by sifting through those places.