You’re sick of hangin’ around and you’d like to travel

by The Photographer

Being on the road is fun and it’s not fun at all. I’ve had more than one Company tell me over the years that they aren’t paying me to go on vacation, that I’m working. Of course, that’s true, but only partially. People like me don’t drive around the country because it’s the only job we can get. There are plenty of crappy photography jobs in every city in America. I could still work at a Big Box store and listen to screaming babies and mothers all day. Or I could get serious about some other form of work. Well, it is a bit late in the game for that. I don’t always feel old, but once in a while my joints ache and my mind wanders.

I currently take photos of college kids, though they don’t like to be called kids. So I work during the school year and am home when school is out. The money isn’t bad, but it isn’t every week. It’s enough to get by on and that’s good enough most of the time. When I’m on the road I have Expense money and Pay money and I can eat out and stay in not too bad hotels. I can put aside enough money to see me through most of the summer, but seldom do I make enough to last the whole summer. Like all of these fly by night portrait companies, they tell me to get unemployment when I’m not working. I always have mixed feelings about this.

I’ve been a professional photographer for around 30 years. Give or take a few years here or there. Time was I pulled down around 60k a year. I spent it all, of course. Now I don’t make anywhere near 60k a year, but I do get to travel rather a lot. I’ve ticked off those last few states in the lower 48 and the odds of hitting the last two states are pretty slim. This means that I’ve been everywhere and there are few places left on my List. I’ve never made it to Miami or Key West and I would like to head back to Seattle and the West Coast again, but that seems unlikely to happen anytime soon either. I used to be the best photographer at every Company I worked for, well, now I’m not always at my best.

It’s possible that I could do some kind of freelance photography work over the summer. Take photos of kids or families or women wearing sexy lingerie. Just enough to earn a couple of hundred bucks a week. But I just have never been good at getting clients and keeping them happy. I’ve sold a few Fine Art Photography prints, but that’s a hit or miss bit of business for me. I used to do UberEats and DoorDash and the like. Amazon Flex sends me emails once in a while asking me if I want to pick up a shift or two. But damn, I can’t do that kind of work anymore. Too much effort and too little return. Lately I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT and Midjourney in hopes of making a few hundred a week to see me through. It’s not happening.

I buy a lot of random crap in hopes of reselling it on Ebay, but that takes a lot of effort for a tiny return as well. I don’t find a lot of Rolexs out in the wilds and the stuff I do find never seems to sell for what I think it will.

So I end up watching a lot of TV and a lot of YouTube. I’m a bit fan of The Critical Drinker and Oxhorn. I got really carried away with Fallout 4 last time I had some time off. I’m trying not to spend all my time playing video games this summer. There are all the usual things that need to be done. Cleaning and cooking and whatnot. Etsy and KDP take up more time than you’d think and again, the return is barely worth mentioning. The real problem with having so much time off is that I have too much time to just sit around and think. Being home is a bit stressful.

Traveling also means a lot of Podcasts and Audiobooks as I spend anywhere from a few hours to a few days getting to my next Shoot. It’s not as easy as it used to be. I got spoiled at Olan Mills Church Division, we would work the same shoot all week. Now I setup and teardown two or three times a day. It’s not always that bad, but I do get tired the longer the day drags on. There’s no reason I can’t listen to Podcasts at home, but I seldom do.

The fact that I have a bit of wanderlust so soon during the off season is a bit annoying. I should be working on this and that and be keeping busy. I just think about my dear old Mom and how she get to be about my age and sat down in her swivel rocker and never go up again. It does sound good. I’m just not there yet.

I’m missing the Old Days once in a while. But Olan Mills is just another Company that I used to know and the glory days are long past. I’m amazed that I can still do the work I like. My current job is pretty much my Dream Job, or it would have been ten or twenty years ago. Now I feels too much like work too much of the time.

Anyway, it’s all good and I’m still doing what I love.