Firstly, It’s now been 5 months since I left Calgary in April 2016 and started this whole crazy idea again! Considering my previous two road trips topped out around the 4 month mark each time, this is a huge deal for me. Do I dare say it? Third time’s a charm?
Well, it seems like I may have to slow down even more as I simply can’t keep up this pace as well as I thought I could. You may have noticed a lack of posts here for this trip. It’s not that I don’t have ideas, it really comes down to time and even while not having any other obligations I seem to have a shortage of it. When I go somewhere and shoot both photos and video for 3-7 days I create a pile of work that then needs to be imported, filed and edited. Even editing 10-14 hour days when I’m not shooting I’ve gotten exponentially behind as this trip has gone on. Not a big deal, I just have to slow things down to balance out the shooting with the editing and the writing, and the social media “marketing” and the bookkeeping and the cooking and the dish washing etc etc. I’d even like to experiment with out things like more time lapse work, more night work, get better at the video stuff and more. I’m definitely not complaining, it’s a great problem to have, being busy doing what I love, (this is all fun work).
So I’ll let you all know how that goes. The only foreseeable challenge may be the weather as I make my way south after Halloween, Depends how lucky I get I guess.
Episode 32 is coming this weekend but I’m still behind, (refer to above) but I’m having tons of fun with them. In the beginning I kind of cringed (as most of you probably did) at my stuttering awkwardness in front of the camera but to be honest, I’m now at a place where I don’t give a shit if I make an ass of myself. I’m not really an uptight guy in general so I’ve simply been trying to adapt that outlook to the videos. I care what’s going on in them, hoping they somehow make sense and hold some entertainment value but the vain concern over my “on air personality” has left the building. I do have more ideas to try and feature other people and do more segments on cool places etcetera but again it falls under the whole limit of time. Slowing down could help in this department.
I do encourage anyone watching them to let me know what you think and also ask questions. Questions give me something to answer and I enjoy the engagement. So fire away.
I’m also now slowly working on a music video that I shot with a friend in August. I can relate to and love the song I get to work with so I’ll keep you all posted when that’s ready for public consumption, (providing I can do the song justice).
My rapidly expanding Lightroom Catalog is becoming a rabbit hole of epic proportions. Regularly I’ll be importing a recent shoot only to find myself 5 hours later playing with an image from 3 weeks ago that I didn’t have time to really address when I imported IT. It’s a never ending loop with the “I’ll do that one later” pool getting deeper and deeper as I go. Again, no big deal, I just figure at this rate I’ll have millions of photos to edit when I’m old.
Which is the reason I also had to recently shuffle my video files to a different hard drive to utilize hard drive space and delay having to drop money on at least two more drives. Everything I do now is backed up/mirrored to another drive so that I always have two copies, (See lesson learned from 2009). Therefore when I need more space, I have to buy two drives, and so on, and so on.
So far I’m still on track, if not slightly ahead. The paid shoot and little bit of work I did on Salt Spring Island helped but was also somewhat eaten up but some other things that are happening. No surprises in the mechanical department other than a few small things needed for the trailer like sealant, some electrical stuff done etc.
That said, if anyone along the way wants or needs photos done I’d love to work with you. I can pretty much do it all and like a challenge if it’s something new to me.
I wasn’t sure how I’d like it but since I just returned from a little “truck only” excursion this week I have to say I’m now sold on having my little rolling home base with me. This workload would technically be impossible without the cozy familiar place to sit and edit as well as eating and sleeping. I’ll still go on some side excursions to shoot but mostly I’ll be coming back to the tin can every night as I’ve become quite fond and dependent on it.
I have a good friend who has taken the reigns and his helping me with some business stuff to get my work generating some dollars. She’s starting locally (to her) in the Okanagan area of British Columbia and is meeting with commercial real estate developers to see if they’d be interested in prints for hotels, casinos, condo sales staging etc. The initial reception has been great so I had to get her a portfolio book and price lists to help her show my stuff in meetings so that was also money well spent. My fingers are crossed as this could be a huge turning point for the future of this road trip.
So that’s an update in a nutshell. Hopefully I’ve touched on everything in my world for now. Just wanted to share and keep anyone who’s interested in the loop. I’ll be trying to write more here in the coming months.
Cheers friends,
W.
