I think I am a little worn out.

This sneaks up on you, but when over a few years you have been constantly opening new doors, changing and adapting and worrying a little or a lot about the future, finances, your relevance and the future of your career type as a whole, it soaks in, wares you down. I am also aware of a pending trip to Japan, something I have sorely missed over the last few years.

The paper was a good move financially, a bad one for peace of mind and personal happiness. I have learned a new way of doing my art, but also had to accept a lot of limitations and to look at the world a little differently. I would miss some parts of it like the access to sport and an awareness of the arts etc, but not much of the rest.

I knew this going in, but the period from December to April where I was held in limbo by the paper was past annoying (my resignation email was actually in the inbox of the editor who was terminated that very day. A sign or a bad habit continued?), so my journey at the paper has turned more into a holding pattern, a “wait and see” than a future pathway for me.

There are signs of light and life. The paper is switching to a more online footing which gives us more scope for images and video, even more scope for ourselves to function independently retaining some relevance.

Probably the biggest strain though has ironically been artistic frustration.

My ideal is to be in a dynamic environment where lots is happening and I can record it with stills, video, or sound, without the impediment of space, captioning and time limits. Somewhere where I can make a difference, help people realise their best self. A place where what I have to give will help others and as it goes, me to.

That should be a school right, or maybe a volunteer organisation even a news paper?

Problem is, all three schools I have been involved with are slow to embrace this. There are privacy issues and internal dynamics which I am aware of, but stuff is always happening and these kids come and go so fast, their lives and exploits are so short lived like capturing fire works.

The volunteer organisations are more of a surprise though.

I am offering free video and stills for any event large or small giving them the opportunity to show the world what they are doing, but it ends up with me sitting and waiting. Even if I am in the habit of reminding them at regular intervals, I tend to only hear from them with “we should have called you” or “would have been great to have you there, but “a” thought “b” had it sorted” comments.

So far, the bulk of what I have done is end of year report portraits, which are fine, but not all I signed up for.

The key is to be there under peoples noses all the time, but where, why and under what umbrella?

On a positive note I have realised my life was devolved down to all things photo based, so I have re-awoken my other hobbies, hoping to give myself some form of artistic release and the new found sound sphere is sitting patiently for me to get in, get on and use it.

The games room that became a studio has gone back to being a games room giving me more room, because the squeeze was getting to me and the reality is, I go to them, not they to me.

I have re-activated the games page on this site, something that does not sit perfectly for me here, but I have put years into it and don’t want to run three web pages and it gets considerably less traffic anyway (more of a thinking out aloud exercise for me).

Keep swimming I guess.