I've added a few shots from recent projects to my Commercial/Editorial and People galleries. Clients have included Kris Hill Company (custom homes), Field & Stream, Jungle Campus, Guideposts, the Iowan and SHOT Business magazines.

Nancy and I took a drive to Dubuque, Iowa Tuesday afternoon to pick up some artwork at the museum. Always a lovely day-trip from Iowa City, and Dubuque is so interesting these days. On the way back we took the scenic byway following the ridges and valleys of the Maquoketa and Wapsipinicon Rivers. It was like travelling by car through Middle Earth. The narrow concrete road, probably built in the 30's, gets so little traffic anymore, what with the new freeway, that grass grows in all the cracks.

In high school and college we used to spend the summers swimming at several quarries around Iowa City--Dingleberry, Cedar Valley and Atalissa among others. They're all deserted now but every summer my brother Jim and some of his friends make the pilgrimage back from far-flung corners of the world to relive their youth.

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This is formatted for Boundary Waters/Quetico Park fanatics so there may be more information here than you really want to see. Quetico Provincial Park is a large wilderness park in northwestern Ontario, Canada, renowned for its excellent canoeing and fishing. This 4,760 km²(1.18 million acre) park shares its southern border with Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is part of the larger Superior National Forest. These large wilderness parks are often collectively referred to as the Boundary Waters or the Quetico-Superior country.

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We (Bill Asprey, Jim Wight, Steve Bender and I) had a great canoe trip to Quetico Park in Ontario as usual (9 days starting 5/24). I have been tied up with another project so I still haven't had time to get my photos processed, but here's a teaser from McNiece Lake, our 2nd night. McNiece is famous for it's old growth red and white pines, a tiny, remote fragment of the pine forests that blanketed the whole upper midwest before logging began in the 1800's. There was a massive forest fire on this lake several years ago (2007?) but the north side escaped damage.

Gerry Eskin's exhibition, "SCALE: Ceramic Forms and Photographic Landscapes", opened June 5 at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa. Eskin is adjunct professor of art and art history at the University of Iowa and maintains homes and studios in Iowa City and Aspen, Colorado. All photos ©2010 by Mark Tade.

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Scouts and leaders from the Iowa City/Coralville area gathered on May 1, 2010 at Nile Kinnick Stadium on the University of Iowa campus to celebrate the 100th year of scouting.

Essence of Spring in the Midwest: wild turkey picatta (freshly-killed wild turkey from Phil Bourjaily, shotgun editor at Field&Stream magazine), wild morel mushroom gravy, grilled asparagus, Russian cabbage buns and chanterelle&onion rolls from the farmers' market. Our Spring "Thanksgiving" feast was blessed with a heavenly bottle of 2004 Clos de la Coulée de Serrant that Enosh Kelley of Bistro Montage in Des Moines provided. Not much styling went into this snapshot--I was too hungry!

I am installing a new show of my color photography at the Design Ranch in Iowa City today (http://www.designranch.com/), including a series of photos of some favorite cobblestone beaches along Lake Superior's north shore and some botanical work.