To Venture Once Again

November 6, 2016 In Photography

The life of a traveler is often executed with very little planning. Wanderlust demands spontaneity. You stay until you get the shot or until the stars, slowly as they will, move into just the right position, then sleep in your car because it’s too late to go anywhere else. You follow the steeper, more dangerous path, and continue to the top of the mountain or the edge of the cliff. You reroute to the island you’ve just become aware of, because…well who knows if you’ll ever have another a chance. But this is all expected. This spontaneity, this intention to deviate, is the plan. And therefore, sometimes, everything goes according to plan. Sometimes you get to Europe, spend a month in a van, meet some old friends and some new ones, survive some minor attacks, sustain some slightly less minor injuries, and return home in the general season you expected. You grab a seat on a couch and Netflix binge for two months, making regular blog posts, until all photos have been tagged, edited and put on display for the world. Snip-snap. Find a job, rinse, repeat.

Of course, then there are the other times. When you haven’t heard from me for over two years, you can bet it’s one of those rare other times. One of those times when the plan to not plan went somewhat awry. When I failed at not being tied down. When the trip lasted extra long, and sitting on the couch and editing was not an option. Maybe I fell in love unexpectedly on a far away beach with an old friend. Maybe I came home and tore my ACL in half. Maybe I went back to school, became a software engineer, planted some roots, wrote a couple of books, found a house with a couple of pups. I suppose when there are nearly 500 photos to edit, 50,000 to sort, plenty of things could get in the way. The time could slip by in a blink and a website/blog could be left so untouched for so long, you might wonder if it had been abandoned entirely, if its author had given up photography for good and sold out to the bay.

You might wonder these things, but then you just might not be surprised to find this adventurer had left it all behind and begun again, only now with a partner, for the first time ever.

I’ll make some posts about that 6-month trip to Southeast Asia in the months to come, but in the meantime, let’s take a peek at where I’ve been since.

Readysetgo!

I never get tired of photographing Big Sur

See why?

Bixby Bridge

Hey that’s me!

Just a bit more of California’s beautiful hills

My new Costa Rican friend. I call him Blinky

My very first encounter with LED grids. You can see why I bought 2 immediately

Fancy a swim anyone?

This is my favorite playground. Seriously.

Just straight up copyright infringement

Are we all sick of dock photos yet? Apparently I am not.

I call this one Charles. Charles is inquisitive.

A neat little off-the-map surprise pit stop in Myanmar

The only other human I found there. Nice enough to let me take a photo. Apparently a fan of British football clubs with his Manchester United beanie, or just a fan of a warm head