without going too deep into any philosophy of photography (why? because, well, i've never ironed one out in my head - although i do agree that my world is enormously better off with photos than it would be without), when i take pictures, i pretty much just aim to find meaning and feeling in what's around me. wait, maybe that came off a little too deep (see without... above). i mean, there's all this stuff going on around us, some permanent but mostly temporal, and if i can get some of its underlying message or feeling, then i've done what i've (retroactively) planned to do. and if not, i've had fun trying to extract something from my surroundings by taking pictures of it - indeed a worthy endeavor in and of itself.