Out of the last year, I’ve spent over four months travelling in order to photograph.  I spent a month of that time in Tibet, where I was able to stay in guest houses sipping yak butter tea while watching the sun rise on Mount Everest.  I spent two weeks on a road trip to California with my wife, during which time, I alternated between days of photography and rock climbing.  For nearly two months I explored New England during the peak of the fall colors. I have photographed 2 weddings in Nepal, one in Washington D.C., another on the beach in Southern California, not to mention countless weddings across Colorado.  This to me is what living the dream is all about.

Sometimes, I need to remind myself of how this is all possible.  Part of that is realizing that photography is only a small part of the equation.  There are many things that most people don’t know about that are required in order for me to be a successful photographer.  So much time is spent on budgeting, it borders on ridiculous.  For instance, when I traveled to Asia this past year, I incurred a lot of expenses.  I had to weigh the option of having a magazine pick up the tab, or paying for the trip myself and having more freedom to photograph what I want.  Then there is the question of whether or not I could pay for the expense with income earned from the project.  This is an exceedingly impossible task due to all the variables involved.

Also, there is this illusion that photographers are self employed.  People say that it must be great to make my own hours.  A lot of time it is, but I also work pretty hard.  It isn’t unusual for me to work 20 hours each day when on a project or photographing a wedding.  With wedding photography there are no second chances, do overs, sick days, or good enoughs.  It has to be perfect the very first time.  With each wedding, I photograph, hours of time is devoted to planning every detail ahead of time, because I know expectations are nothing less than perfection.

That all being said, I do love my job.  I am getting to live my dream, but sometimes I need to remind myself of all the work that goes in to it, because the last thing I want is to become complacent.

Related posts:

1. My favorite wedding
2. Walton Ward Wedding
3. Amber and Daniel’s Wedding

In spite of living in relative poverty, the people of Tibet were friendly and open.  They had a sense of humor about life that I was immediately inspired to photograph. The same held true for the people of Nepal.  And although I was there for a relatively short time, I ended up returning home with hundreds of portraits of the people of the Himalayas.

Returning with all of these images made me feel like I had took something of value from the Himalayas without having given much back. While I was there I had the opportunity to visit a school for the blind built by Braille without Borders. It was amazing how little money it took to put a person through the school in Tibet. Equally amazing was just how much it could change a person’s life there. In a country like Tibet, a disabled person has few opportunities outside of begging.

My doctor here in Breckenridge had often told me about a clinic he had helped to build in the Langtang region of Nepal while he was there.  And although I didn’t have time to travel there myself, I decided to donate the purchase price of the portraits I created to help benefit the school and the clinic he had built through Doctors to the World.  The show, Faces of the Himalaya, has travelled to other galleries before finding its way back to Altitude Gallery this January, 2010.  The sale of just a single print can put a student through the school for several months.

Event Information:

For more information, visit www.altitudegallery.com

Related posts:

1. Faces of the Himalaya
2. Living the Dream and Remembering to Work
3. Tripod Trepidations