This week was a mixed bag, just like one of those colourful party-mix lolly bags. There were flavours of the week that I enjoyed, some bits surprised me, and other parts were simply difficult to digest. 2020 has been continually challenging in all departments. With each challenge, comes a lesson to learn, and some of these take longer to learn than others. In a continual state of change, I know that I am continually learning and developing as a person. With that being said, I’m going to compartmentalize the different areas of my life and week as I unravel the week that was.

CREATIVE PURSUITS

Over the course of the last year, having my photographs printed has been an idea that often surfaces amongst conversations with friends. I’ve been fortunate enough to work in Aquabumps, one of Australia’s best art gallery in Bondi Beach, along with knowing some of Australia’s other leading aerial photographers. These experiences and friendships have definitely rubbed off on me, giving me a keen curiosity for prints. I enjoy the feeling when you get to stand in front of a large print and take in every detail of it. This is something you don’t get to experience when you look at photos on a screen. I have been fortunate enough to have my photos put up in Octeine, a local cafe in Kent Town, Adelaide. It was special to have the support from Pete at Octeine and to see a creative vision come to life.

SUNSETS

I’ve continued on with my cold water immersion this week, which I’ll touch on more later. Instead of going in the dark this week, I headed down a little earlier to catch the sunset. When I think of moments that fill me with excitement, it’s when the sky turns all kinds of vibrant pastels at sunset. It will always amaze me. Here are a few of my favourite photos from this week.

RUNNING

The transition back into running continues. I have taken on a new approach to running, focusing on the shorter and faster speed work. The variety in both the training and change up from endurance has been refreshing, particularly from a mental standpoint. In a short time, I’m starting to move faster and hit times that I haven’t done before previously. I wish I was able to quantify the physical adaptions (or not) I hopefully took away from Calendar Club and my cycle across the US. In addition to getting faster, I’m trying to get stronger. At the moment, my mileage isn’t very high compared to what I’ve done previously but I’ve incorporated a lot more ‘quality sessions’ which is something I haven’t done since 2014.

YORKE PENINSULA

I made a spontaneous decision on Friday to head down to the Yorke Peninsula with a couple of my friends. I left my phone home and enjoy time off the grid. We ran in the rain, played cards, drank tea and watched movies. It was a well-needed change in routine for me.

CHALLENGES

This is a little excerpt from some of my notes this week. I don’t find the weeks to be any easier at the moment but here are a few words that describe some of my thoughts as to why it’s been challenging.

It’s not that easy to just ‘slot back in’ and find a groove that works.

I’ve been in place for the last few years doing something I love. It’s a beautiful place to be in; combining my passions of travel, running, photography, people and writing. To describe what I feel now is difficult, but somedays it like I’m going backwards, and that’s not easy for me. Comments and questions like “Go and get a job.” “What are you going to do for work?” .. they are tough to answer as a travelling freelance. In my mind, I’m going to continue to create and document life as I know it around me. Inevitably, the creation process looks different now.

People would tell me I’m lucky to do the work I was doing, but they didn’t see the endless weekends I spent inside hostels around the world editing photos. They haven’t seen the hundreds of thousands of photos I’ve taken, instead, they’ve seen one. The one photo which was carefully selected because I thought it told the story best. The one photo that I colour graded to reflect what I saw in real life.

I can’t explain the feeling of being in an airport in Italy, ringing my friend back home, asking for their advice on what country I should go to. Or what it’s like to be sitting on 170km/hr down a highway in Spain by myself blasting Ben Howard.

So when I go to sunset and put myself in the cold water. It reminds me of what it felt to jump in an alpine lake in the mountains of Switzerland or the streams in the backcountry of Spain.

I’m fortunate enough to have wonderful people around me who help me in working through the ideas, thoughts and challenges.

Enjoy your week.

Big Love,

Film shot by Lauren Sebastiani.

1 Comment

JACKSON GROVES on June 30, 2020 at 4:48 am

It’s been pretty cool to watch you continue to document the daily in a way that remains captivating. Easy to capture imagination with a photo of a 3000m+ summit, much harder to do with light flowing through a window into your bedroom on a Tuesday morning in Adelaide. Kudos