For the second morning in a row, I’ve been treated to a temperature right around 60 at sunrise — a huge departure from typical July in these parts, where temps at sunrise can frequently be in the 70s. Along with great temps and beautiful sunrises was really dense fog in the valley and along the river. When I crossed the river coming to work, the scene was stunning, but at 60mph and on a bridge that’s barely wide enough for the car lanes, there’s just no opportunity to capture that scene while driving.
Or is there?
I’ve been contemplating rigging the passenger seat of Smokey with some kind of removable camera mount, quite probably a tripod with the legs adjusted to wedge it in place. I’ve got a cable release for my 20D, so it’d be nothing to fire shots out the passenger window while toolin’ down the road. That’s the correct side of the road for my bridge sunrise, and I suspect the implementation of something like that to be pretty easy to pull off. There’s vantage points being up on the bridge that just can’t be replicated, and two mornings of beautiful sunrises viewed from it certainly fuel me wanting to do something to capture these fleeting views.
However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg that floats in deep waters within me, hunting for my own personal Titanic. The real impact of mornings like this is that once again, the fire gets lit within me that makes me ponder just how I might get to where I can spend my days behind the camera rather than in a cubicle, outdoors rather than inside. Of course, a tremendous session like that we had with the elk on Sunday is only another log on that fire. These are real challenging waters for me. I can see the place I wanna land my virtual boat, I just can’t get my brain around how to get my oars to move me from here to there.
Obviously, me and thousands of other folks are trying to figure out how to escape the cube farms, and how to chase their dreams. For some, they’ve saved enough that they can step out on that limb and give their dream career a real attempt without the distractions that come from trying to follow their path on a part-time basis, yet still pay the mortgage and the tax man. For others, it’s a leap of faith. They believe enough in their skills and their dream that they begin walking that tightrope without a net, and simply work hard, hoping for the best. I think there’s still others out there that make lifestyle changes that allow them to chase the dream: drop the big mortgage and big car payments, and move into a more modest lifestyle that can be supported by the proceeds garnered from the chase of the dream.
And then there’s me. I don’t really fit any of those categories. Basically I’m a big coward at heart — ok, not really, but I do like knowing when, where and how much I’ll be paid. I also thrive on not having bill collectors screaming at me daily. I’ve been there, long, long ago; I didn’t like it then, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stomach it now.
I don’t know the answer, and unfortunately this isn’t the kind of question for which you can peek at the answer key in the back of the book. I certainly think I have the skills and drive to pull off doing my own thing with photographic work, at least on a scale where I could survive. The question is really how bumpy the road is between local artist and surviving artist. And to me, success at survival is defined as being about to support my family — I don’t need fame or name recognition on the big stage, although I think a little bit of that probably comes by the time someone can support themselves on the proceeds wrought from hanging art in folks’ homes and businesses.
There’s been a few good articles about this sort of thing lately…. I’ll try to get to those a little later….