Presently, I am quite close to engaging the hyperdrive on part II of my life as a nomad photographer, a life entering it’s second year. In actuality part II was the past 5 months spent in Copenhagen but for the sake of continuity I shall dub the next piece of my life Part II. I am honoured and humbled by the interest and support in my work and life and thank you for your emails, Twitter tweets and Facebook messages. My reflections on part I are here, presently I wish to share the plans and thoughts for Part II. Will Part II be of interest? Let us find out!

Papua New Guinea

I fly out Sunday 31st of October landing in Cairns, Australia on Tuesday morning completely skipping Monday (let me know if I miss anything). By Saturday the 6th of November, hopefully jetlag-free, I board the True North vessel with mates Mark Stothard and Christian Fletcher. Destination: Papua New Guinea and seven days of tropical bliss featuring unspoiled waters, islands, reefs, villages, people and endless banter with Mark and Christian. I shall capture stills and HD video around the clock, even whilst diving thanks to my new waterproof Sony DSC-TX5 camera. This promises to be an epic excursion to one of the destinations of my dreams.

Australia

We end the trip back in Cairns, Australia. I plan to get myself to Broome, Western Australia by car or plane. No Australia visit for me without a stay in Broome, one of my favourite places in the world. My sanctuary and I suspect I need a bit of rest and time to develop images after PNG. I look forward to catching up with Nigel and Helen from Red Dirt Photography and capturing more of James Price Point and other spots. I truly wish for a home in Broome. Unless they build the gas hub (please don’t!) in which case everything will be built-up, industrialised and ruined. Post Broome (if I can get myself to leave that is) I have many plans. I shall drive to Perth by Pilbara’s Wide Open Spaces visiting Stephen Williams. I will catch up with Perth people, do a big meet-up hopefully. I must then attempt to clone myself for the next part.

Africa and humanitarian work

Africa calls me deeply, I must go to Africa again very soon and Perth to Johannesburg is not far. About two months ago I began pursuing my newfound dream of doing humanitarian photography. I sent out a multimedia presentation package to several large NGO’s and received positive response and opportunities. Presently two large worldwide NGOs wish for me to do stills, video, interviews and articles on projects in countries in Africa and Asia. Splendid opportunity to do some good with my images and see more of Africa. More details to come when I have them, I am extremely excited about these opportunities.

Asia

Now, simultaneously my clone will embark early December for Malaysia to visit friends in Kuala Lumpur and at a plantation. We will hopefully include a little trip to Borneo as well. Then onwards up to Thailand for visiting more friends and work on a joint project capturing stills and video of the lives of children Thai boxers in remote villages. Additionally, whatever projects the NGOs have for me in the area.

Australia, again

It then presently looks like I will be back in Perth, Australia, in February 2010 working on two projects. One yet unnamed, the other being whatever our joint documentary project Further and Further ends up as. We are planning to shoot for the stars – and the moon.

Do I work on projects in Africa before or after Australia in 2011? Will I succeed in cloning myself? I also have a friend and possible NGO projects in India waiting for me. We shall see. I must attempt to sequence these exciting opportunities so I can do as many I can without wearing myself out. If I get exhausted I will pause or stop for a while at a base in the world or in Denmark. No longer having to compete with myself I hope I feel comfortable pausing when I need to. Nothing left to prove, just everything left to create, live and explore.

Many plans, much excitement in these opportunities. I worked to create these opportunities having learned in part 1 that opportunities and plans rarely drop out of thin air. Now I come prepared. I can alter plans as I like but I need plans and projects to fall back on. Reduces the risk of feeling lost in aimless wandering.

Dream come true?

You say it sounds very exciting, a dream come true. It is and I agree. Three years ago I could only dream of this, now I live it every day. It is also very hard work and effort, harder than I imagined. Nomadic life means strange days in strange places, no stability and no feeling of home. This is a large coin with a large flip side and I have unfortunately caused unprecedented damage to people close to me. Every day I wonder whether it is worth the price. I must pursue my passion but light this strong casts dark deep shadows. It is automatically an inner journey as much as an outer journey. I thought I had an idea of who I was before my nomad life. I had no idea. I mostly knew who I was defined by others and am just now learning who I am as defined by me.

I accomplished much of what I wanted during summer in Copenhagen. I created my new website which launched to great response. Since the launch I have sold more images than in the 8 months of 2010 prior to the launch. I developed old and new images and launched 325 fine art images with my site. I created a new blog. I learned the basics of cutting videos. I created my humanitarian photography project. I did some IT-work. I recently integrated an automated Photoshelter.com stock image archive into my site, that will launch when I have my 500+ stock images uploaded. Filming a planned short movie unfortunately fell through due to time. As in, not enough. And importantly, I caught up with friends and family. I healed wounds. I am sorry you have to read this boring resumé list, it is just there as fuel for my own engine, need to convince myself I did all I could before Part II.

Most of my creative creating this summer has been in front of my Mac. I long to get out on the road, out into Mother Nature and create images, videos and stories again. I so long to create. I am ready and am terribly excited about my opportunities. I am also a little scared. It does require strength I do not always have. At least I am now aware of this.

I shall not end with one of my beloved quotes but stick to my own words. Create your adventure, your own adventure. Reach out and grab your dreams. See you in the world.

 

You can follow my adventure, words and images on my blog, Twitter and Facebook.

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