Summer is Almost Over

Another year shooting Greek Composites at colleges around the country. I’m not sure how long I will keep doing this, as I have said before. I have all these ideas about making money by blogging, or reselling stuff on eBay, or writing little info products of one kind or another to sell on Etsy or Gumroad or some such. The problem is I still have to create the Notion templates or the Canva blanks or the Lightroom Presets. And that has proven to be harder than I thought it would be. Even with the help of ChatGPT and Midjourney, the process is slow, and the results never seem to be as good as I would like.

The work remains mostly the same. Long days and long drives. The summer remains a challenge, I sell a few hundred dollars worth stuff on eBay, but I need to sell a few hundred dollars worth of stuff a day for it to be worthwhile. The blogging business has never earned anything more than a few freebies and a couple of dollars from Google Ads, and that hasn’t happened in years. I’m working on a couple of new blogs, but it’s a lot of time and so far no rewards. I’m photographer, I should be looking for clients during the summer. Do a few family sessions in a park. Take some business man’s head shot. Do a couple of Events. Maybe even look into do some Boudoir work, I seriously thought about that at one time, but never got past the thinking stage.

The old van died and I replaced with another old van. It’s nice enough, has a heated steering wheel and heated seats. Bought it in North Dakota. Need to clean out the junk that’s found it’s way into the back over the summer. Go through my travel gear and decide if I really need to carry around the odds and ends that I like to take with me. The studio isn’t that large when it’s packed up and yet the van still ends up filled with junk. It’s all good.

Heading back to Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington. It’s a place I like. Usually end up hitting more of the Pacific Northwest while I’m up there. Seattle, Oregon coast, down highway 101 to San Diego. But not always, it’s all up to the Company. All I know for sure is Pullman and Moscow. There are a few things I always do there, I need to find something new to take some photos of. Thinking about going to some National Parks on the way. Of course, I’ve done most of the ones between here and there already. It’s still good to have something to look forward to. I also have a few books to catch up on. The Company, of course, thinks I should just zip up there in three days and not waste my time with sight seeing.

The first year they told me not to take the wife with me because-you know, reasons. That lasted a few months and I had her fly out to meet me in Seattle. There were a lot of Bucket List items on the first trip out there. Now my bucket list is dwindling down to sitting in a swivel rocker and never getting up again.

It’s been a long couple of days. The crazy politics, the stress of working on a couple of blogs, the long hours of not getting much done. The nice thing about a job is that you have somewhere to go and something to do. Sitting around the house feels like I should be getting a few things done, but then I look around and well, not much gets done.

I don’t have any funny work stories because I work alone now. Back in the glory days there were always two or three other people to talk to and share stories with and well, those days are gone.

Things will be better once I’m on the road again. Well, for a little while anyway.