Here I am, once again, starting a post from a non-stationary location. Of course, this time it is from the car, with my family as we roll up I-85, coming back from going to see my parents for a combined father’s day/mom’s birthday visit. We had a really nice day there, and got to hang out with my parents and sister for the first time in a while. I just finished watching WALL-E save the planet – I’d never gotten around to watching it before now; cute movie – and Veggie Tales’ Snoodle’s Tale is on now, but I’ve opted out of that particularly fine piece of cinematic excellence to write this.

I was reminded by a certain blog stalker – you know who you are – that I sort of left things at an intersection with my last post. Well, technically I was reminded by my wife because she was reminded by said blog stalker, but I digress. Regardless of how I came to find out that I’d inadvertently created a cliffhanger, I felt I would be remiss in not correcting it. I rarely consider that anyone other than me reads this – and am still more than a little surprised. Mea Culpa.

In the original post, I said that I was to learn my fate that Friday. As luck would have it, no decision was finalized on Friday, so I got to spend the weekend wondering where the following week would leave me. Fun, fun! Yay. I went in Monday morning and the president of the company was in meetings until mid-morning when I finally couldn’t stand it anymore. I set up covert surveillance on his office so that I could “casually” happen by at the right moment between meetings. A little after ten thirty, that opportunity came for me to pop my head in his office and ask what the word was. His response was a rushed “I’m late for a call, can I come get you in a little while?” I said he could, but I already had my answer. Good news is easily delivered in a three second span; bad news requires a little more room to stretch out in. It was almost five before he found the time to confirm what I already knew, but I’d already emptied my desk a few items at a time over lunch – I wasn’t really very hungry – and throughout the afternoon. He said that I could remain until Friday – putting me into the next pay period, which is good – and transition my accounts to those who would be taking them over. And, ironically, I was to deliver a speech to the Greenville, SC ISSA chapter on Friday – and they’d specifically requested me because, when I spoke there last year it reviewed really well – so it was a win-win. I still had some last minute work to do on the presentation – like, you know, creating it – that I’d planned to do this week anyway so I told him I’d be completing it from home between my scheduled meetings. Who wants to be dead man walking all week, huh? I mean, I was OK, but I can’t stand the looks of awkward discomfort and attempted nonchalance from everyone when you pass in the hall.

The truth is, this whole thing is a bit of a mixed bag for me. I’ve not enjoyed my job for many months now, and some days almost couldn’t bear the though of going in. Don’t get me wrong, my job wasn’t bad – at least the one I was hired to do – but I didn’t often get to do it; for months, I’ve found myself in the office doing busy work far more hours than I’d have imagined possible, and I’ve never done well with either of those (office time or busy work) if they go on for too long. I am far too ADD to handle it. In fact, the guy who hired me called when, after several days, I had not made a decision on the job offer he’d made. He asked if there was some concern that he might be able to address. The one concern I had was that I didn’t want a commute and a desk job – I hadn’t done that bit in years, and I had no desire to return to it. I want to be in front of the customer. That is where I am most useful, and where I am most engaged in my job. He incorrectly assured me that the office was not where he expected I would be spending much of my time. The bitter irony is that, my last week was spent doing exactly the job I was hired to do. I had more hours with potential and existing clients than I’d had for the previous four or five weeks combined. Isn’t that always how it goes, though?

And the week ended with my speech in Greenville – my swan song, as it were – which was a little strange. I walked up to the lectern an employee of Stonesoft – to stand and deliver their message to a big room full of people – and walked away from it unemployed. I wouldn’t say I was upset by it, per se, but I was most certainly affected. If you’ve ever found yourself dating someone that you realize you are indifferent about at best – but they dump you before you get around to dumping them – then you have an inkling of how I felt. There wasn’t enough of an attachment there to cause any really strong emotional reaction – and there was an element of relief in it – but my snow globe has been well and truly shaken just the same. My play list on the way home was dominated by tunes by Seether, and Muse, and the like but, the song that most resonated with me was The Resolution by Jack’s Mannequin. It somehow fits.

I’ve had a number of friends call me up to “just check in.” I’ve been quite touched by it, actually. Many of them have attempted to prop up my self esteem from the inevitable blow it must have taken but, the truth is, that’s a little like trying to convert The Pope to Catholicism. Yeah, I am actually that arrogant. xP Seriously, though, I am very good at what I do and I have the work history and shelf full of awards I’ve won from my last several jobs for consistently exceeding expectations, to prove it. I don’t think that is arrogant to say – though the larger question of my arrogance still remains, I suppose – but I think it is disingenuous to show false modesty too. I mean, I’ve been in the pursuit of the field I’m in, in one form or another, for what has just past 30 years – or 3/4 of my life – so I certainly would hope I’ve developed a level of proficiency to be good at what I do.

The thing is, though, that all only matters from the bigger picture perspective; a closer examination would reveal that I’ve been mailing it in at work for far too long – and I’ve hardly been able to stand myself for it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been doing my job, but only the minimum required of me, with the exception of the few parts of it that I particularly enjoyed (the more challenging ones). That sort of existence quickly relegates you to office drone status, though, and I’ve never been able to live with the monotony of that sort of existence. Some days I felt I was in danger of my brain gnawing its way out, and taking off on its own to find something more interesting to do. And, honestly, I’m not sure it wouldn’t be the same anywhere else I might end up, and that concerns me more than a little.

So it is, that I find myself at a crossroads, of sorts. I find myself wondering if keeping on the same path is the right thing to do or not. If you did the math in the above paragraph, you’ll see that I’ve basically been working on or toward this career since my age was still in the single digits. Later on, at a time in life when many of my peers where trying to decide what they wanted to do with their lives, I was already working contract programming jobs for Fort Benning. I’ve simply never had to wonder or consider, so all of this is very foreign to me. I’ve just never stopped to consider that I might actually end up doing something different.

But, for years I’ve dreamt of making my living in photography. The problem with that is that most photographers make very little money. Depending on the surveys you read they make between a quarter and a third of what I do based on median incomes. Yeah, that little. There are a few statistical outliers, as with any typical distribution, but most of the really successful ones were commercial photographers, and that isn’t really what I want to do. Product shots? Boring. I make a fair little supplemental income from teaching photography at The Showcase School, but there isn’t really any way to increase that. Even if I did, it wouldn’t be much of a living. And doing portraits and the like isn’t the kind of thing you can be instantly profitable at overnight. It usually takes years to build up to an even moderate income. What I really enjoy doing is travel photography, but getting a job doing that is almost unheard of; most musicians stand a better chance of making it in their field. There are only a few full time positions available globally and hordes of people are clamoring to fill them; most of them more talented than me by far.

But, while I was pondering that, my mind wandered to some travel shots taken by one of my students last session. And I realized that she was off on a photo vacation right now. Then I stopped to consider that I was planning a photo vacation to Utah in October. And I started riffling through my mental notes and realized that I’d heard quite a number of people from the school mention trips whose primary purpose was photography. And all of that got me wondering about that particular market. My research has turned up thus-far that there are quite a few businesses offering just such vacations. You pay them a fee that ranges from several hundred to several thousand dollars – depending on the duration of the trip, the amenities included and the company offering it – and you get to go on one of their trips. They are usually small groups – usually eight or fewer people – at some fixed date. What you get for the money is someone who has planned the trip and will have you at all the appropriate landmarks at the times when the lighting is best for you to get a good shot. And, while you are there, you have an experienced guide walking around helping you with framing and composition advice as well as answering technical questions about things like aperture, shutter speed, filter selection, etc. Some even include photography classes between shooting sessions. Since most of the photography takes place at sunrise or sunset, that leaves a lot of room to work things in.

All of that got me thinking. If I’m good at nothing else, I excel at teaching photography, and I am absolutely fanatical at planning photo shoots. On those trips of my own to exotic places, I’ve already figured out sunrise and sunset times as well as the sun’s azimuth (direction) at each of the locations I want to shoot and already have a list of times I need to be at certain places to get the shots I want. I am nothing like the worlds best photographer – or even particularly inspired, for that matter – but I could SO do these trips. So I started thinking more about how I might market them to make what I had to offer any different than what was already out there. I’m beginning to work out a rough idea, including offering camera classes in the morning session, say, and Photoshop in an afternoon one. Participants could come home with a good working knowledge of landscape photography, and a good handle on Photoshop, plus a bunch of good photos to show for the trip. And, if you can put a reasonable number of butts in the seats, you can make a good living at it and – more importantly – I would once again be at a place where I love my job.

I’m still not anywhere near done with my research, so I can’t say for sure if it is something I’m going to pursue, and Christy is less than enthusiastic about it at this point, but who knows. Only time will tell. I’ll keep researching it, but I will continue with my traditional job search as well. If I’m meant to get a normal job, I will. We shall see. So that is where I am. I’m in a reasonably good mood, and am curious to see what the future will bring. For now, I’ll just keep on keeping on and pray to be pointed in the right direction. Not much more I can do…

/g