Man, how scarce have I been? This new job, as I may or may not have mentioned, is keeping me pretty busy. Most of last week was a 50 – 60 hour week. Which means i’m out around 10 – 20 hours a week of my own personal free time. That should be coming to an “end” though, sooner or later. I have been put back onto the call out duty rota, so there will be a “chance” for me to make up my extra money and over time over a period of a week a month, that way I can go back to doing standard 40ish hours per week. Get back into the gym. Do more photo edits. Even evening shoots during the week with the weather being more tolerable and staying lighter for longer.
Shooting has also been a little quiet, mainly for the 2 reasons which is work and that I have been struggling with a cold/flu/nasal infection the last 2 weeks. On weekends it tends to come and go and as I was mean to to go to the American Speedfest at Brands Hatch today, the sinus decided to flare up resulting in me cancelling BH to recoup. Usually seems to happen on a Sunday. Maybe it’s just an allergy to work on Monday.
I finally managed to get myself a GENUINE MB-D11 battery grip for my D7000. I will admit that I was a little nervous as it was £100 cheaper then anywhere else I had looked. Was almost convinced it would turn up and just be an over priced plastic replica. But not… Genuine Magnesium Alloy Nikon grip. In love. Has made my camera body already that much sturdier, compared to the cheapy I got of Bay of E.
I think the last bit of shooting I did was the APEX Festival a few weekends back. That was probably over 2 weekends ago. And to top it all off, I am on call out duty this coming weekend, which means work work work, all weekend long and no time for me camera. Oh well… Gotta do what I gotta do.
I came across this website the other day, of a 22 year old woman who has just bought her first Lamborghini and as I browsed around her site on how she did it blah blah I came across a term that another author and hero of mine uses frequently. It’s called “the new rich” where by you are not necessarily “rich” in that you have a Lambo, Ferrari or huge mansion, but instead your “wealth” is more about enjoying life now. Rather than working 50 years. Saving. And then retiring. The idea is to work less hours per week, let’s say 20 for example, while still generating enough income to maintain a certain standard of living, thus allowing you the freedom to do more of what you want. 20 hours per week at 7 hours per day, is a 3 day work week effectively. I don’t know about you, but if I could live my life (rent, car, food, toys etc) exactly the same now, while working less and having more freedom to pursue my photography/gym/reading/sleeping/travelling… I would certainly go for it.
I have really been struggling the last several years to not only get back into shape, but to lose weight. So for my recent birthday, I asked my wife to get me one of those Nike+ Fuelbands. It tracks your all day activity. You set a Nike Fuel goal and off you go. It tracks your Nike Fuel, calories and steps taken through the idea. Now my idea and reasoning for getting this was for a more visual motivation at completing my goals. If I see that I am falling behind my daily goal, then I can step up the pace, or throw in some extra forms of exercising to at least burn off those remaining calories or Nike Fuel points. I have only had it around a week n half, and haven’t started any form of training yet due to my flue/cold and also I was on call all of last week, so hopefully tomorrow will be day #1. I will be back on a strict eating plan and working out 3 days a week at home and 2 or 3 days at the gym. Let’s see how it goes for round number 325 of getting back into shape. The worst thing is that I will have to give up coffee. Oh well… Nothing to it but to do it – Ronnie Coleman.
In other news… Not a lot. Made myself a very simple and basic laptop stand for some tethered shooting. I will be creating a basic tutorial on how I made mine and I ended up using it today. Works really well, for what it is. Just a light stand with a home made laptop stand attached.
And that’s it for now… Catch up with you all again soon.
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