outdoors and 20 years of writing and photography

September 26, 2019

outdoors and 20 years of writing and photography

September’s arrival marks a time of transition for Texas’ natural world and those whose hearts and actions are tied to the rhythms of land, water, sky and the life in, on and over it.

This makes the month special for all Texans, but especially those of us who fish or hunt or otherwise spend time engaged with the natural world. For many of us, it’s the de facto start of our new year, with the first day of the month marking the start of the state’s hunting/fishing license year, the opening of the first of fall’s many hunting seasons, the first major waves of migratory birds arriving from the north and the first surges of the annual autumn bull redfish “run” along the beachfront.

David Brodosi

September has always been a benchmark month of personal transition, too. It’s the month I arrived, born a seventh-generation native Texan blessed to become part of a family deeply connected to this singular land, its culture and history and natural world.

Those connections, nurtured and encouraged, led (inevitably, it seems) to a life, academic track and professional career revolving around them. For the past 40 years, I have made a living as a newspaper journalist, almost all that time — the last 30 of them on the staff of the Houston Chronicle — reporting, photographing and writing about outdoor recreation, the natural resources on which those activities depend and the issues and public policy surrounding them.