2016 has now officially been my slowest year since purchasing my very first Nikon around 5 years ago. To be fair though, the first half of the year was spent travelling. And the next 3 months were focused towards moving back into our own place. So in essence… It’s probably more like 3 months. Or at least that’s what I am telling myself to make me feel better.
From January to July my wife and I were away, travelling. We went to South Africa, 3 months in Australia, New Zealand and Thailand before returning back to the UK. We were set on continuing travelling for the whole year, but unfortunately there was something that happened along our trip that made us decide to get set back up in the Uk, temporarily.
I’m not going to give too much away at present. In fact all I can openly say is that we won’t be in the UK forever.
I tried to hook up with models in SA, but there was absolutely no one who was available. Or should I say… No one in my small home town that wanted to shoot with me. My style (boobs n bums) is probably a somewhat out of the comfort zone of some SA woman. I always found home to be somewhat conservative with that kinda thing.
Then the 3 months in Australia. I ran a couple of Castings online and had quite a bit of interest but not much in the way of follow through. There were two models in the end, one who was an established Suicide Girl model, but timing just was never right. With the fact that my wife and I were actually travelling around a fair bit or out exploring, nailing down a date/shoot proved much harder than I thought it would be. Besides… This was meant to be travelling adventure shared with my wife. Not really a shoot models travelling adventure. I would love too have combined the two, but there were just hiccups with every move I made. So by the time we got to New Zealand, I had just scraped the idea all together and concentrated on the adventure.
We spent around 3 weeks exploring the South Island of NZ, in a quirky Campervan. And the last month was spent on a scooter rolling around Thailand, or lounging around on the various beaches in Phuket.
[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”41″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_thumbnails” override_thumbnail_settings=”1″ thumbnail_width=”230″ thumbnail_height=”120″ thumbnail_crop=”1″ images_per_page=”0″ number_of_columns=”0″ ajax_pagination=”0″ show_all_in_lightbox=”0″ use_imagebrowser_effect=”0″ show_slideshow_link=”0″ slideshow_link_text=”[Show as slideshow]” order_by=”imagedate” order_direction=”DESC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]When we returned from the travelling, we temporarily moved back into “our” small room (hole in the wall) at my brother in laws flat. After 6 months of travel and freedom, being back in this tiny room was not ideal and we suffered major withdrawal symptoms from the awesome life we lead for the first half of the year.
I also ended up back at my previous job and so did my wife. Well, sort of. She’s back with the same company but in a different role. Back to working 12 hours a day 🙁
During those first 3 months of being back, I tried to get back into the swing of things and booked my first photoshoot of the year, but it was less than spectacular. Mostly from 2 points… 1: I only had one flash (as I had sold my entire lighting kit to put towards travelling. And a couple of dish reflectors with honeycombs, plus my trusty shoot through brollies. 2: The location was basically the models bedroom.
So I decided to rather hold out until we were in our place so that I could have a few shoots at home. I would know the layout and have an idea of what I was trying to achieve. BUT… Then we moved. And winter started settling in. And I got lazy. I got demotivated. Everything was too much effort. And that’s what it’s been like the last 2.5 months.
Wake up. Work. Come home. Laze around. Bed. Repeat.
Well… As per usual, in 2017 it’s that New Year, New Me bullshit. But the plan will most DEFINITELY be to shoot more often. Shoot Often. Or Quit. Depending on work, I would like to try… I mean really try to shoot at least once a week. Not only models, but landscape and outdoor shots too.
So, if I don’t get to post again with in the next couple of weeks, before the new year, I wish you all a Very Merry Xmas and an Ecstatic New Year.
🙂
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