Adventureskope

In this world of Pop Idol, auto-tune and the incessant drone of same-same R&B it’s easy to lose faith in modern music. It’s easy to fall into the depressing reality that what’s on mainstream radio sounds like shit and the ‘kids of today’ don’t know a damn thing about good music. I was getting dangerously close to becoming permanently bitter, getting a ‘Get off my Lawn’ t-shirt and investing in a quality rocking chair.

Last Wednesday night my faith was refreshed. I traveled up to Wellington for the night and saw Death Cab for Cutie live in the Town Hall. I didn’t know what to expect, it’s a small venue and Death Cab isn’t very big here in NZ. I thought that there was a chance the gig could be a dud – how wrong I was.

When I walked in I knew I was in familiar territory. Wearing a plaid shirt, heavy black rim glasses and disheveled hair I was dressed in the uniform of the night. To my surprise the crowd was mostly young hipsters in their early 20′s – not the 30-something aging alt-rock aficionados I was expecting.

It suddenly hit me – Twilight. Death Cab provided a song for the Twilight soundtrack and introduced their groovy melancholy sound to a whole new generation. What surprised me even more was that this wasn’t some Team Edward convention – though the flick might have been the gateway drug, these kids were here to see the band.

When they kicked off with the haphazard and building drone ‘I Will Posses Your Heart’ from the brilliant ‘Narrow Stairs’ the whole crowd was locked in, for all nearly nine minutes of that song there were right there in the pocket with the band. Letting the music move them, lose their teenage inhibitions and find their groove in the swaying beat.

What’s more this wasn’t like so many gigs I’ve seen over the years populated by early 20′s – there wasn’t a battalion of dunk morons trying to crowd surf, mosh to mid-tempo music or lose their shit in the most un-cool of ways. Perhaps it was the presence of so many ladies, but the crowd was incredible – one of the best I’ve seen at a show for a long time.

It was less of, ‘show me what you got’ and more of a sense of dancing your ass off, singing along to every tune, no matter how buried in an album from a decade ago and living in that live moment. Live music has the power to change people – it certainly changed me back in the day. To be there and bare witness to so many people having their first transcendent musical experience was a true honor.

The band played their role and allowed the magic to happen. Some shit movie might have been the gateway to get a bunch of fresh faces into this band, but it was this band that really opened the door for so many into a wider world.

My faith is restored. The kids are alright.

Check out this live vid for ‘We Looked like Giants’ from a few years back – they closed their main set with this one and absolutely rocked the house.

Don’t be late.

The first rule on the first day that Steve told us was, “Don’t be late, or everyone will pay the price.” It was all a matter of time before somebody turned up late. It’s not surprising really; we start at 6.30am in the black dark with our breath hanging in the air.

We were halfway through our warm-up when I saw a shadowy figure join in. He didn’t even try and sneak in – there was no point. When we finished the warm-up Steve, our trainer, reminded us of rule number one and introduced us to our new nemesis – the rope.

The rope was some sort of tug-o-war rope, the sort of thing they tie boats up with or that you used to climb in gym class. As punishment we all spread out along the rope, held it aloft above our heads and ran as a unit across the field. First moving as a wave and eventually in a line. Keeping the awkward pace wasn’t nearly as hard as keeping the heavy rope held above our heads the whole way.

Beastings finished it was back into our ‘regular’ routine. I missed Fridays’ session so I was motivated to work my ass off and keep pace. Good thing, there was plenty of work to be done. Once again the workout was another hellish circuit. It occurred to me as I was flipping a massive tractor tire over and over again that this training is more middle ages than cutting edge. You can imagine that somebody preparing to fight with a sword and a club would get trim like this. Swinging a sledgehammer, pulling a heavy rope, carrying a heavy weight up a steep hill, press-ups and squatting with a kettle-bell – it all feels more 1st century than 21st. Perhaps it’s that Bronze Age feel to things that makes the whole workout seem more pure. Slapping off reps on some weight machine while Lady GaGa thumps on the stereo just feels false and silly in comparison.

What added to this today was our first sense of team – we finished the session with another spell hoisting the rope above our heads and this time running a full lap of the oval. Single file we all struggled to keep it above our heads, running at the staccato pace of a tight file. By the time we got to the far end of the lap the first words of encouragement started to filter through and by the time we finished the sense of I was starting to fold into a reality of we. Good signs – there is much to go through yet, we’ll need all the collective energy we can get.

Steve finished the session with the encouraging words that last week was all about warming up and building a false sense of security – this is where the real work begins. While I’m sure some were shuttering, there was a palpable feeling of preparedness amongst the team. Bring it on, we’ve got this.

Excuse me, is this Sparta?

I’ve done lots of overly ambitious things before. I’ve run the Routeburn twice in a day, rode my bike the length of The Nile and ate KFC for three consecutive days and survived. With all that in mind, this morning was the first time in a long time that I was scared shitless.

I wasn’t standing at the edge of a precipice or about to set off on some epic adventure that was going to take me days – I was at the gym about to work out and I was shaking in my boots. Sometimes when you set out to do something the severity of it sneaks up on you and at the end you say something like, “wow, that was harder then I thought it would be.” I specialize in those.

Today was different, today was the start of something that I know with every ounce of my being is going to be really bloody tough. Spartan Training Boot Camps are all the rage these days. Designed to get fit people fitter, motivate the trained-out and get some serious results. Though named after ultra-fit ancient Greeks it doesn’t really have anything to do with how the actual Spartans trained, but it is how the actors for the movie ’300′ trained to look like Spartans.

In our ever meta world I’m in a training program to look like an actor pretending to be a ancient Greek dude on his way to get heroically slaughtered. The idea is a workout that confuses your body, mixes interval training, weights and general suffering for an hour at a time three days a week.

Steve, our trainer, put it rather bluntly and honestly. “If you come in here three times a week and work as hard as you can, give it everything you have, you’ll leave here in the best shape of your life.”

Our leader is perfectly suited for the role – not some steroid sculpted hulk – he just looks like the fittest guy I’ve ever seen. A former commando in the Royal Marines so he knows a thing or two about training and discipline and as he said, “I know how you are all feeling, I was in boot camp for six years.”

Today started with a run around the oval at our still dark 6.30am starting time. After warming up, it was straight into the business. Circuit training with fun stations like; burpies, press-ups, squat with a kettle-bell the size of a cannon-ball, hit a massive tire with a sledge hammer as hard as you can as many times as you can, make big waves in the rope used to tie up The Queen Mary and fast walk across the field with 2 20kg weights.

After doing the circuit twice I was spent – but wait there’s more. From there we went to a nearby hill where with a partner we took turns sprinting up and over and back up the hill while the other patiently waited in push-up position.

Standing up from my last prolonged push-up the world was spinning. Breakfast was on its way back. I did that slow stagger and impassioned self-talk, ‘come on man, keep it together.’ Mentally talking myself into not vomiting I looked around for a ‘just in case’ spot and what do I see, my buddy Cles had bagged the best spot and was spewing nonchalantly by the fence. Welcome to Spartan Training.

Somehow I held it together – but just. And perhaps thankfully the workout was over, save some stretching.

So what do I think? It was hard – but awesomely good too. It’s going to be an adventure for the next five weeks, one that I’m keen to share with all of you guys.

I’m going to be writing a story about my Spartan Training experience for V02Max Magazine and seeing as I’m going to be recording my thoughts, I thought I’d share them too. Think of it as part cautionary tale, hopefully a bit of insight and maybe if we’re lucky some inspiration. Either way there will be lots of stories about me really not enjoying myself and people seem to always enjoy those – go figure.

Thanks for tuning in and see you next time.

Odds:

Chance that I throw up at some point: 99%

Chance that I end up in better shape than I started: 100%

Likelihood that somebody yells, “THIS IS SPARTA!!!” at some point: 75%

Chance that I cry at some point: 50%

Odds that I can convince Jason Law to wear a ’300′ costume: 65%

Excuse me, is this Sparta? Part 2 – Don’t Be Late

 The first rule on the first day that Steve told us was, “Don’t be late, or everyone will pay the price.” It was all a matter of time before somebody turned up late. It’s not surprising really; we start at 6.30am in the black dark with our breath hanging in the air.

We were halfway through our warm-up when I saw a shadowy figure join in. He didn’t even try and sneak in – there was no point. When we finished the warm-up Steve, our trainer, reminded us of rule number one and introduced us to our new nemesis – the rope.

The rope was some sort of tug-o-war rope, the sort of thing they tie boats up with or that you used to climb in gym class. As punishment we all spread out along the rope, held it aloft above our heads and ran as a unit across the field. First moving as a wave and eventually in a line. Keeping the awkward pace wasn’t nearly as hard as keeping the heavy rope held above our heads the whole way.

Beastings finished it was back into our ‘regular’ routine. I missed Fridays’ session so I was motivated to work my ass off and keep pace. Good thing, there was plenty of work to be done. Once again the workout was another hellish circuit. It occurred to me as I was flipping a massive tractor tire over and over again that this training is more middle ages than cutting edge. You can imagine that somebody preparing to fight with a sword and a club would get trim like this. Swinging a sledgehammer, pulling a heavy rope, carrying a heavy weight up a steep hill, press-ups and squatting with a kettle-bell – it all feels more 1st century than 21st. Perhaps it’s that Bronze Age feel to things that makes the whole workout seem more pure. Slapping off reps on some weight machine while Lady GaGa thumps on the stereo just feels false and silly in comparison.

What added to this today was our first sense of team – we finished the session with another spell hoisting the rope above our heads and this time running a full lap of the oval. Single file we all struggled to keep it above our heads, running at the staccato pace of a tight file. By the time we got to the far end of the lap the first words of encouragement started to filter through and by the time we finished the sense of I was starting to fold into a reality of we. Good signs – there is much to go through yet, we’ll need all the collective energy we can get.

Steve finished the session with the encouraging words that last week was all about warming up and building a false sense of security – this is where the real work begins. While I’m sure some were shuttering, there was a palpable feeling of preparedness amongst the team. Bring it on, we’ve got this.

Some guy called Lance does a kettle-bell swing

Excuse me, is this Sparta? Part 3

“It was all starting to make sense, in a Tyler kind of way.” – Fight Club

Week three of Spartan training is here and at zero-dark-thirty there we were outside in the dark once again, ready to work like we’ve never worked before. In the growing light I looked down the line and it felt like there were fewer of us. I think a few folks decided to pull the pin and quietly bow out. Not surprising really, this sort of thing isn’t for the faint hearted. Our ramshackle group was one part motivated, two parts stubborn. Up until today the training has felt like it was some sort of full-frontal assault of our fitness walls. One thing after another, more diabolical than the last with no rhyme or reason. Today amongst the hurt, reps and sweat it all started to make sense.

Right out of the gate Steve told us that the warm-up was over – it’s about to get much harder. After our usual warm-up consisting of a jog, lunges, squats and some stretches it was time to hit the circuit. The plan for today was to run through the circuit three times – nothing else was on the books – today was all about maximum effort, all the time. For the circuit we each teamed up with a partner and went from station to station exercising for 1minute per station, with a 10second rest between stations that included getting to the next station. The stations consisted of: Press-ups, squat with a medicine ball then throw it as high as you can, kettle-bell squats, kettle-bell swings (swing the ball from between your legs to fully extended above your head), flip a tractor tire end over end, run up the bank with a 25kg sandbag on your shoulder, hit a tractor tire with a sledge hammer as many times as you can, bear crawl (hands and feet on the ground) up the bank, two-foot hop over mini hurdles up the bank, walk with 2 x 25kg weight plates up the bank, make waves in the Titanic ropes. That’s 11 stations, 1 min per station with a couple minutes rest in amongst – roughly 15min of suffering. 15 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time – but when you are smashing yourself as hard as you can the whole time, it feels like days. And that’s just one lap – after a 2min break we did it again and once more after that.

What’s starting to make sense is that you go 100% at one exercise and the next one you do is similar, but not quite the same. This means it kind of feels like a rest and you can give 100% all over again. I never would have expected that the hardest things I would do in this program weren’t some crazy never seen before exercise, the most challenging things are usually the simplest – press-ups on the third lap, swinging a kettle-bell the size of my head over my head when my arms were going to explode from doing lay-ups with a sand filled basketball.

It struck me once again today and is perhaps one of the most inspiring parts of this program – It doesn’t matter who you are, man or woman, weakling or ripped, trained or tired – we are all using the same weights. That means that the petite rail-thin runner girls in the class are monstering the same iron bowling balls above their heads as I’m nearly heaving my guts out to do. It puts things in perspective and is a timely reminder that toughness is a package that comes in all sizes. These ladies aren’t dragging at the back – they’re showing us lads how it should be done. Onwards and upwards – Wednesday is halfway and I’m starting to really feel the difference.

Excuse me, is this Sparta? Part 4

20 seconds can feel like a lifetime.

Three weeks down, two to go. This whole business is supposed to be getting easier – right? Not really. Just when I feel like I’m getting a handle on things the ante goes up and it’s back to the bottom of the steps.

Reality is, we are all getting way fitter and all the exercises have to be amped up to keep the throttle pinned. The weights grow every day and the intensity seems to inch up every morning too.

Last week we were introduced to the ‘big’ tire. Since day one we’ve been flipping tractor tires end over end, last Wednesday we discovered that there is always one bigger. The ‘big’ tire clocks in at a stout 120kg and feels like you are flipping over a car. Amazingly today that tire that almost killed me to flip last week was a hell of a lot easier – for a brief moment I almost felt joy.

Today we did our familiar circuit that I’ve described before. We charged through it three times before waiting to see what was next. Expecting laps with the rope above our heads or something worse the crew was visually tense with anticipation. Steve surprised us when he told us to come into the gymnasium for the rest of the session.

Once inside, once I heard what we had to do, I kinda wished we’d stayed outside and went for a jog with the SS Tug Rope. The plan was diabolical and terrifying, especially after 45min of 100% output.

20seconds of exercise, followed by 10seconds of rest and repeat. We’d do 8 sets of each exercise before switching to the next one – all at 100% effort.

Exercise 1 – deep squats. The first few sets were okay – they were tough but not too painful. By the 7th set my quads felt like they were going to explode, it felt like my thigh muscle was bunched into a tennis ball in each pants pocket.

Exercise 2 – press-ups. The first set felt nice; at least I wasn’t doing squats. In 20 seconds if you go fast you can do around 20 press-ups. That’s in the neighborhood of 160 press-ups in two and a half minutes of work. Well there certainly weren’t 160 reps from me. By the 8th set I was lucky to get 5 in. it felt like my arms were made out of lead and not in a good way.

Exercise 3 – crunches. All I could do was drape my dead arms across my chest and curl for all I was worth. Again the first few sets were okay but by the time we got above five I was in a world of hurt.

Exercise 4 – burpies. Just to finish everything off it’s time for the one exercise that thrashes everything all at once. 20 seconds can feel like a lifetime, by the end it felt like I’d lived one.

Puddles of sweat pooled around our smashed bodies. Those last 15 minutes might have been the hardest quarter hour of my athletic life. As easy as it would have been to lie in the fetal position and wallow in the suffering we just fought through I felt oddly uplifted. Strange how all this madness actually feels ‘good’.

I guess it doesn’t have to be fun, to be fun.

Excuse me, is this Sparta? – Part 5

All good things come to an end.

When my alarm rang at 5.30 last Friday the first thought that hit me was, ‘this is it – last one.’ As I ate my usual pre-training breakfast (banana and a glass of juice) my mind kept pin-balling between the idea that they’d go easy on us because it’s the last day or smash us into oblivion, because it’s the last day.

The session started like they usually do – a run around the oval to get warm and try and wake up. As the season has progressed so has the hour of dawn. In the first few weeks we got to watch the sun rise over the basin and be buoyed on by the light of dawn. for the last week of the program it was cold and dark the whole time. The foreboding ambiance added to the whole primal feel of things. It was supposed to be hard, it was supposed to hurt, darkness and seeing breath hang in the air just seemed like a perverse requirement too.

After our lap it was time to get down to business, one last time. Any ideas that this last session was going to be a push-over were blown out of the water once we saw the set-up. Our last rounds of the circuit were going to be a greatest hits package – bigger weights, more reps, less resting. Kettle bells that would have broken us on day one were tossed about like toys, tractor tires stolen off some sort of monster truck are flipped with reckless abandon and press-ups are snapped out like some sort of masochistic cyborg.

After one punishing round of the circuit we all expected a 2min break before hitting it again. Not today. Before we could even catch our breath we all lined up along the big ropes attached to another massive tire. We grabbed the rope and ran a lap dragging the tire in our wake.

By the time we got back to the start my lungs were on fire and my legs were made of stone. 30seconds later we were back at the circuit – one last go, the intensity shot up. We could all tell that our time was running short, it was the darkest hour, when you slip into the internal and the effort comes not from your muscles but from your very soul. It went quiet, it’s always quiet, but on this last day we all were digging as deep as we could, not to compete, not to impress but to post a high water mark on our own internal ledgers.

As the circuit finished we thought that a break finally might be at hand – but not today. Straight into the final push we lined up at the top of the bank. On go we sprint to the bottom of one side, back over the top and down the other side and back to the top, smash 5 press-ups and count one lap. The prescription was 10 laps and added onto what we’d already done it felt like the lash.

By the time I’d finished my 10th lap I was spent. It was over – we’d worked at 100% for 50min solid, there was nothing left in the tank and I felt great, in an awful sort of way.

So having survived and come through the other side, what do I think about this whole Spartan Training idea? The tale of the tape tells a big story – my body changed in all the ways I wanted it to: gained a few cm’s on my chest, my arms stayed the same diameter but are sculpted rather than rounded, my quads grew by a couple of cm’s, straight around my belly lost a few cm’s and amazingly my hips (at trouser waist band height) lost a surprising 11cm. I wasn’t setting out to change my dimensions, I just wanted to get stronger and fitter – and I’m definitely all of those things.

So would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Sure getting up at 5.30am sucks and it was cold and largely uncomfortable the whole time. The training was hard and I was introduced to more discipline than I’d experienced in my adult life, a saw people puke and cry and overcome what they thought they could do and discover a taste of what they are capable of.

Maybe it’s not for everyone – it’s a hard environment where there isn’t room for slack or a lack of commitment. If you’re willing to lay yourself bare and give everything you have, show yourself at your most vulnerable and never, never give up this strange cult-like environment could be the answer to all of your training questions.

On the last day, when it was as hard as it ever was, I looked over and saw a group of people who’d bonded over sweat and will forever be linked by our shared experience in physical punishment, self discovery and athletic re-birth I finally answered the question I posed from the very start…

Yes, this is Sparta.

I’ve done lots of overly ambitious things before. I’ve run the Routeburn twice in a day, rode my bike the length of The Nile and ate KFC for three consecutive days and survived. With all that in mind, this morning was the first time in a long time that I was scared shitless.

I wasn’t standing at the edge of a precipice or about to set off on some epic adventure that was going to take me days – I was at the gym about to work out and I was shaking in my boots. Sometimes when you set out to do something the severity of it sneaks up on you and at the end you say something like, “wow, that was harder then I thought it would be.” I specialize in those.

Today was different, today was the start of something that I know with every ounce of my being is going to be really bloody tough. Spartan Training Boot Camps are all the rage these days. Designed to get fit people fitter, motivate the trained-out and get some serious results. Though named after ultra-fit ancient Greeks it doesn’t really have anything to do with how the actual Spartans trained, but it is how the actors for the movie ’300′ trained to look like Spartans.

In our ever meta world I’m in a training program to look like an actor pretending to be a ancient Greek dude on his way to get heroically slaughtered. The idea is a workout that confuses your body, mixes interval training, weights and general suffering for an hour at a time three days a week.

Steve, our trainer, put it rather bluntly and honestly. “If you come in here three times a week and work as hard as you can, give it everything you have, you’ll leave here in the best shape of your life.”

Our leader is perfectly suited for the role – not some steroid sculpted hulk – he just looks like the fittest guy I’ve ever seen. A former commando in the Royal Marines so he knows a thing or two about training and discipline and as he said, “I know how you are all feeling, I was in boot camp for six years.”

Today started with a run around the oval at our still dark 6.30am starting time. After warming up, it was straight into the business. Circuit training with fun stations like; burpies, press-ups, squat with a kettle-bell the size of a cannon-ball, hit a massive tire with a sledge hammer as hard as you can as many times as you can, make big waves in the rope used to tie up The Queen Mary and fast walk across the field with 2 20kg weights.

After doing the circuit twice I was spent – but wait there’s more. From there we went to a nearby hill where with a partner we took turns sprinting up and over and back up the hill while the other patiently waited in push-up position.

Standing up from my last prolonged push-up the world was spinning. Breakfast was on its way back. I did that slow stagger and impassioned self-talk, ‘come on man, keep it together.’ Mentally talking myself into not vomiting I looked around for a ‘just in case’ spot and what do I see, my buddy Cles had bagged the best spot and was spewing nonchalantly by the fence. Welcome to Spartan Training.

Somehow I held it together – but just. And perhaps thankfully the workout was over, save some stretching.

So what do I think? It was hard – but awesomely good too. It’s going to be an adventure for the next five weeks, one that I’m keen to share with all of you guys.

I’m going to be writing a story about my Spartan Training experience for V02Max Magazine and seeing as I’m going to be recording my thoughts, I thought I’d share them too. Think of it as part cautionary tale, hopefully a bit of insight and maybe if we’re lucky some inspiration. Either way there will be lots of stories about me really not enjoying myself and people seem to always enjoy those – go figure.

Thanks for tuning in and see you next time.

Odds:

Chance that I throw up at some point: 99%

Chance that I end up in better shape than I started: 100%

Likelihood that somebody yells, “THIS IS SPARTA!!!” at some point: 75%

Chance that I cry at some point: 50%

Odds that I can convince Jason Law to wear a ’300′ costume: 65%

Yesterday I was lucky enough to go shoot an amazing BMX event here in Queenstown. The Red Bull Roast It was put on by, unsurprisingly, the cool folks at Red Bull. Not only are they great friends of mine, they know how to host one heck of an event! Many more images to go through and sort, but I wanted to share this 21shot sequence with you guys first – hot off the press! Check it outr and stay tuned for more!

I’ve just uploaded a couple of new desktop wallpapers and iPhone backgrounds for you to download. Follow this LINK to the Wallpapers page to see what’s new and now available to download. Remember these are free to download, but your support is always appreciated. Click on the Contribute link on the right to help support fresh content on this site and hit the Why Contribute to find out what I’m on about. Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy the fresh stuff!

People ask me all the time, “What’s it like being a freelancer?” Sometimes people are interested in how I get work, how I make contacts and how I get paid, but more often then not people are just curious about how my day works.

Most people who have normal jobs have day to day lives that are pretty similar to everybody else who has a normal type job. It doesn’t really matter whether you work in a factory or are a dentist – if you omitted what the ‘work’ part of the day is – they would look pretty similar.

Seeing as my job isn’t ‘normal’ i.e. – I don’t have a boss, I work from an office in my house, I make my own hours and what I do during the day is a bit different than most, I thought I’d shatter some myths, change some misconceptions and maybe shed some light on what it’s like to be a freelance writer, photographer and filmmaker.

So this is what my ‘typical’ day is like – it isn’t what today is, but you get the idea…

7.30am – wake up

7.45am – have a coffee in bed while checking my emails on my iPhone, read the news and see if there is anything earth shattering in the world today.

8am – get up, go for a jog or if I have some exercised planned for later in the day have a shower.

8.45 – eat breakfast

9am – go out the front door and walk around to the back of the house where the exterior door to my office is. There isn’t internal access to my office – so I actually have to go to work every day.

9 – 9.30am – catch up on the news, filter my email for junk, catch up on the happenings on the social networks and ease into the day.

9.30 – 9.45 – make a plan for the day. More times then not this is a list of stuff to do written in my Moleskine notebook that is never more than about 3ft from my left hand.

9.45 – 10.45 – answer important emails

10.45 – 12pm – write. There is always a writing project on the go; this is the time of day when I tend to create. The embryonic stages of pieces are born with structure and outline constructed.

12 – 12.30 – Lunch. I go back into the house and make myself some lunch.

12.30 – 1pm – power nap. (hey I AM my own boss!)

1 -3pm – continue writing. The afternoon session is often more creative where the colorful details and interesting bits are filled into the structure I created before lunch.

3 – 4pm – Pitch for new projects. Connect with editors and collaborators I’ve worked with before and reach out to new ones.

4 – 4.30 – Edit photographs. I’m often creatively spent by 4pm so editing photographs is a good mid-level creative task to do.

4.30 -5.30pm – Edit Video. Often after editing photos for a while I get creatively reenergized and editing video (choosing takes, constructing film projects) stems from that.

5.30 – 6pm – follow up any emails that have arrived during the day.

6pm – render video. Rendering videos can take hours and tends to clog up the computer. I’ll set something to render and make sure it’s doing it’s thing before finishing for the day.

6.15pm – leave the computer rendering video and finish up for the day.

It’s pretty busy and that’s in between BIG projects – when I’m on deadline with big irons in the fire, you can expect that day to extend at least a couple of hours later into the evening.

The key I think to making it all work and to actually get anything done is simple – Structure. The more structure I have, the more I get done. I use sneaky tools like Stay Focused (a Chrome add-on that only allows me to spend a certain amount of time every day on Facebook, YouTube and other time-sucking sites) and simple things like task lists, white-boards, email reminders, and Google Calendar to keep me on time and organized. It’s taken quite a few years to get to this point – but I wouldn’t have it any other way now!

So, is that what you thought it would look like?

As you would have seen in my post yesterday, I’m all about adding extra value stuff to the site. With that in mind I’ve created a new page of desktop wallpapers that you can download. There are wallpapers sized to fit a standard (1920 x1080) monitor as well as for iPhone home screens. I’ll be adding new stuff all the time so be sure to keep checking back. If you’ve seen an image on here before that you’d like to see as a desktop wallpaper – let me know in the comments (or via email, tweet, Facebook or G+) and we’ll see what we can do! In the meantime head over to the Wallpaper Page and take a look!

Sometimes the world changes overnight. You fall asleep in one universe and wake up in another. Styles change, fashion evolves, business changes, the way things work and how they are done goes from one thing to the next. The creative industry is no stranger to this sort of evolution – in fact it’s often the catalyst for cultural shift.

I’m almost 35 years old and I’ve been a photographer, writer and filmmaker since I was 21. It’s the only real job I’ve ever had. When I was fresh off of travelling around the world I entered art school to become a photographer. The photography world I was a part of then couldn’t be more different from what the world of photography is now. It’s easy to say that the biggest change is technology and in a sense that’s right, but in a more vital way, technology has only been the stepping stone of change. When I started out we shot film and the internet was only for sending silly emails via our Hotmail accounts. The bandwidth didn’t exist to send attachments of word documents, let alone photographs – self publishing in the physical world meant zines that were the lowest of low-fi and digital publishing was a pipe dream. In those early days getting work published in a magazine, getting your photographs or words physically printed onto paper was the only means for anyone to see what you could do.

As technology improved, with high-speed internet and digital photography surpassing and killing film the whole idea of being a photographer or a writer or a filmmaker changed. Where it was once a rarity to have anyone see your work, it was now exponentially easier than ever to get your stuff out there. Blogs sprouted from nowhere and image sites like Flickr, 500px, Instagram and so on became a part of our daily lives. Digital cameras shoot HD video and the ease to share your creative work with the world is light-years away from when I was a fresh faced 21-year-old in Calgary, Canada.

I love technology; I love that I can get inspired by thousands of talented artists from all around the world. I love that I can share my work with a wide audience and use the internet to facilitate me living about as far from the beating heart of the publishing world as you can and still be a part of it. Photography has never been more popular, the amount of high quality filmmaking I see every day is staggering and the volume of well placed words I see ‘published’ ever day is really inspiring. The world of creative expression has gone through a revolution in the last decade – everything has changed and nothing looks like it did when I was cutting my teeth in 1998. Well, almost everything has changed.

In 1998 the way a creative person made their living was to sell their work to a publisher – whether they were gong to use it editorially in a magazine, for advertising, to be printed in a book or shown on television. In many ways this is still exactly the same – the only difference is now we have the internet. Where once the creative landscape was sparse with only a few serious professionals making a living much like a tradesman would, now that same landscape is overflowing with armature part-timers. Not for a second am I discounting their talent, on the contrary, it’s their talent that both inspires and scares the shit out of me.

There are now thousands of creative people who are willing to give away what we as creative professionals once sold. Photographers and writers who are happy to see their work in print for the satisfaction of having their name attached to it, without any concern for getting paid. This is a side gig for them, a hobby that they do on the weekends before returning to whatever job they do Monday to Friday. The thing is, this isn’t my hobby, this is my job. When an editor realizes that he or she can get top quality work without having to pay for it, what is the incentive to ever pay anyone again? Thought the argument is still valid that the cream will rise to the top, the vat has become an ocean of milk and emerging from that sea of talent has gotten much harder over the years.

What hasn’t changed is the grim reality that rent is still due, it still takes gas in the tank to get places and we have to eat dinner every night. The gear that I use has grown more expensive and the fixed costs of being a professional creative person have gone up every year. What hasn’t changed in the wages from publishing – rates for words and images haven’t gone up in half a decade and now there is a cultural expectation to give much of my work away. Websites, Facebook pages, Google Plus, blogs, YouTube and so on – this exciting new world of creative sharing means that much of the work that I would have traditionally sold, I now give away. I’m not complaining, I’m just as excited as anyone when people connect with the art that I create and the fact that I have the opportunity to connect with more people around the world than ever before is truly awesome.

What I’ve struggled with for a long time is to find a way, like nearly everyone in my same position, to navigate through this new uncharted land, while still maintaining the job I love. If I give everything away, I’ve got nothing left to sell. If I give nothing away – I’ll be forgotten amongst the tidal wave of art that’s out there. If I give my second rate stuff away, It looks like I’m second rate. For a long time I sat and thought about what to do and after much contemplation, I’ve decided what I want to do next.

I’m not going to post less, shy away from seeing my images go online or run away from creative sharing – I’m going to go the opposite way. You are about to start seeing more of my stuff online – much more of it. Resolutions will be higher, the words I post will be my A-Game and the videos I create will be shot in HD and you’ll be able to download them. I’m going to have desktop backgrounds you can download, iPhone home screen images, and full resolution pictures you can print out and put on your wall if you like. The hesitation to post my work on this site is being eliminated and the volume of my stuff, the work that I am most proud of, is about to go up. Adventureskope is going to evolve into a publication that showcases the very best of what I can do.

So what’s the catch? There is no catch, but I do need your help. On the right side of this page is a link called ‘Contribute’ this will take you to a secure PayPal page where you can donate some money to the cause. You can contribute as mush or as little as you’d like. I’m asking people to pay for what they think my work is worth to them. If you download an image to be your screen saver or to make a birthday card for your friend or a cool background image for your iPhone that should be worth something. You wouldn’t expect to be able to take a magazine home from the shop for free, so what’s wrong with paying a bit of money to help me keep producing art that you (hopefully) enjoy. I’m not going to put prices on anything or ask for minimum amounts – this is about an exchange that you think is fair and just.

There will never be restricted parts to my site, premium access or anything like that. I want to be able to display my best work for everyone to see, download and share. In order to continue to offer that I need your help to make it happen. I’m not asking for much, just a contribution so that I can justify sharing on the web the work that I am most proud of. At the end of the day its good karma and I will be truly grateful for your help.

The future of art is going to be an exciting and ever evolving place and I’m so excited to be a part of the biggest artistic revolution since the renaissance! Here’s to the future!

Best regards and thanks for visiting,

Scott

Cecil Peak in winter - The Ledge is 3/4 of the way up near the centre of the peak

Over New Years I went on a cool adventure with some good friends. Deciding to get out of the madness that is Queenstown during the holiday period, we escaped into the mountains to start 2012 off on a rather spectacular note. Across the lake from Queenstown is the rather large and imposing mountain called Cecil Peak. 3/4 of the way of the peak is an enormous ledge that juts out into the void. This ledge was our destination for NYE. We ended up there with 14 friends – some new, some practically family. Some hiked up, some flew in by chopper – as the sun set the bubbles were flowing and we cheered to the start of 2012. As the sun was setting on 2011 I took the opportunity to shoot some time lapse footage of our vantage point. This was all done with my GoPro HD Hero 2, shooting one frame a second for one hour. I mounted the camera to my egg timer panning time lapse rig (check my How to Make a panning time lapse rig article here) and hoped for the best. I was most pleased with the results – it really captured the feel of the night – complete with the song that we had on the stereo as the fireworks went off at midnight.