travel

Travel when you can

img_20161203_114829.jpg My grandparents liked to travel. Being the days before GPS, my grandpa would use a paper map, mark their route and he’d memorize it. Yes, MEMORIZE it. Then off they’d go on any number of adventures. I treasure the photos I have of their visit to Nashville decades before I called the city home.

Today, I’m married to a travelin’ man, who almost has routes all over the country just as memorized as grandpa did. Not from looking at a map, but from driving those interstates over and over again.

Any chance I get to tag along, I grab with both hands. No matter how tired I am, or how exhausted I know it’ll leave me, I go. I go with the excitement inside of a kid on Christmas Eve. 

Travels with him have taken me places I’d have never, ever gone otherwise. I’ve seen places through the window of a tour bus that have told me two things: this is a beautiful country, and the heart of America is alive and well.

To every person who beats the drum that this country is falling apart and full of hateful people… Get out of your own world and into other’s for awhile. Travel. And I don’t mean just go to touristy locations. Go to small towns. Have dinner in a truck stop diner. Get in your car and drive. Turn off the GPS and go. Use it only to find your way home after. Open your eyes and your heart. Meet the people you’ve already judged without knowing.

img_20161203_115519.jpgTravel is so good for the soul. It’s so good for the mind. It’s so good for perspective.

Now, it might leave you exhausted. I slept 11 hours last night after a fast trip to Illinois and back. But I woke up today refreshed in a way only stepping out of your comfort zone can do for you. 

 “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination with reality, and instead of thinking of how things may be, see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson 

passion, photography

Rekindling my love of photography

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img_20161201_234201I fell in love with photography years ago, but I never seem to give it enough attention for long enough to really let it take off for me. I get overwhelmed and frustrated. I start to doubt my abilities, or I think its becoming too much of a job and less about my passion for it.

This year, though, a fellow photographer here in Nashville has taken a chance on me, hiring me to second-shoot a wedding with her, and then sending me to cover jobs she couldn’t cover. Suddenly I’ve started looking at thing differently. I started to see my love for it grow again, realizing I can join this passion with my degree in journalism. I’m documenting events and moments. With that, I started seeing my want to be better grow, too.

For this month of daily posting, I’m going to revive “Weekly Winners” that I used to participate in years ago. WW’s always made me get my camera out during the week and challenge myself to take better photos. I truly believe this blog “link up” years ago is what awakened this interest and let me grow in it.

This coming Sunday, I’ll bring my own version of Weekly Winners back, but this first one will be photos from the last couple of months. Including a couple from photo gigs I’ve done recently.

I have a goal for 2017 to upgrade all of my equipment and continue photographing every chance I get. There’s no reason why I can’t do this more regularly and make it a viable second income. Who knows, maybe even a primary income in time.