Flying over japan at sunset
Traveling is fun, Traveling is important. Traveling is work. Yes i said it. Its work. In today's world filled with breath taking images of gorgeous land scapes and beautiful beaches we often forget What it took to make that photograph or how far someone walked to get to that spot for a landscape shot. Photography in the past and maybe even to this day are shrugged of as the easy way out for an artist. I say this because there is this assumption of buy a nice camera and click a button. That's it, we've made social media gold. You know what though. This does happen, Alot unfortunately. That is sort of the dilemma with photography being so accessible today. Anyone can get lucky sometimes though, A true testament to a photographers artistry is constantly working to be consistent and create more work.
This is basically how i see or think when I do travel. It's not always just traveling to travel. It's sort of an workaholics mentality really. The last few places i traveled to at the end of 2017 i purposefully set aside time to photograph. I already bring my camera with me everywhere but sometimes you just have to dedicate a full day or two to just explore, learn and try to encapsulate your experience in a image or series of images.
Automated carpark in Japan
I want to take my recent trip to New Orleans and Japan for example. If my iPhone pedometer was accurate at tracking my steps the 2 days i walked around to photograph. I logged about 20miles of walking. Almost a marathon of walking just to find some photographs. Japan was about 8miles a day of walking around to do the same. Now that you know what my feet went through, There is a mental aspect of it as well. Although i am already naturally a noisy person i suppose it's not very hard for me to be very aware of my surroundings at all times. I'm probably in a constant state of ease dropping and staring at people and situations all the time.(this is sometimes detrimental to the people traveling with me cause i don't listen to them lol) This is what it takes unfortunately, It really is a lot of work to create images.
Now don't get me wrong this is something i love doing so i don't consider it so much work per se, but i understand everything that goes into my images. I understand that work and work ethic is still required to do something that i love to do.
Right about at this point you maybe thinking I'm only traveling to get better pictures to show off on social media. Now thats not completely un true because i do like to share my work on social media, but that not my number 1 priority or even a thought really. I just really love creating a vision or a window to my world or the world of others that i photograph. Sometimes i work just to make work. I really don't do it for any other reason. I put hard work into making images that make me happy and thats really all there is to say.
Closed down New Orleans shop
CONCLUSION TIME!!!
Next time you look at someones work and think do yourself i could do that. Try to understand the amount of work it actually took to make that. I'm not just talking about photography either, It could be a custom glass fixture or clay bowls. Someone put alot of work into learning their craft practicing it. It's a lot more work than you think.