The side of a service station and small grocery store in the small town of Circle, Montana. Located in the middle of nowhere and in need of fuel, this gas station was a welcome sight.

I took a brief journey to Montana last week, which means I spent more time in my automobile than I spent in Montana. The trip gave me a chance to get a feel for the area and what I might expect living there in the days and weeks ahead.

There were photo opportunities all around, but because I was on a tight schedule I didn’t stop often. I instead made a mental note and hoped each of those scenes would be just as pristine and remarkable when I return.

When the author John Steinbeck drove across the country and detailed his travels in the book “Travels with Charley” he wrote, “I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love.” I have not yet made it to the most beautiful corners of Montana just yet, but I already understand what Steinbeck saw in the “Treasure State.”

Montana has such a vast and wide open landscape; one of the reason they also call it “Big Sky Country.” As I drove across Montana along the Missouri River I wondered aloud what Meriwether Lewis and William Clark must have thought when they first explored the same corridor. Only 200 years removed from their overland expedition to the Pacific Ocean, much of the land remains and looks exactly the same and is largely untouched by the steamroller of man. There aren’t many places in the United States where that is still true. And where man has made his indelible and unfortunate mark, the places are older and more antiquated than what I’m used to seeing.  It was like a time warp for me.

I truly look forward to photographing this beautiful state.