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Chase Collum | Photography

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Early Call

woke up at 5:20am with intent to leave home by 5:40am but ended up having a little time to drink coffee and have one of nima’s amazing homemade greek yogurt/protein-rich cinnamon rolls. my model for today’s shoot slept past her alarm, which is honestly not a bad thing because the forecast said it would be sunny this morning but it’s heavily overcast and drizzling at the moment. i see sunny skies still on the agenda for the morning around 9am and at this rate, we should be just in time to catch the cloud break. so basically, perfect timing.

i’ll definitely need to take some shut eye at some point this afternoon, but we’ll worth it for a photo shoot.

i’m actually super excited for this shoot because it will be my first using the eos rp. i can’t wait to see how the camera performs - especially in the context of autofocus - and how the images turn out. from my test shooting over the past few days i’m confident that it’s going to get the job done. but this is definitely a proof of concept and i’m a little nervous to have left my 5d mark iii at home.

so to ease my mind, here is a list of things i’m looking forward to:

  • touch and drag auto focus,

  • continuous object tracking in servo,

  • leveling and histogram info in the electronic viewfinder,

  • touchscreen zooming for image review during the shoot, and,

  • the ability to instantly review photos through the canon connect app on my ipad after the shoot so we can pick our faves.

that last item is especially great to me. it’s really hard to judge a photo from the back of the camera. there is an added bonus to the canon connect app, too. i can download the keepers directly to my ipad and potentially even edit them using lightroom cc while i’m on the train ride home i’m not 100% on that last part since i may need to have internet access for the app to work, but now is as good a time as any to give it a try.

once i’m done with the photo shoot, i’m going to make a video about it. i think this is a camera that is in need of a real world review, because if i were to have listened to the reviews, i never would have bought it, and that would’ve been a mistake. or, at least, that is my hypothesis.

categories: Daily, Photo
Saturday 04.06.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Rainy Day Thoughts

after spending a good chunk of time conceptualizing and planning a photo shoot for tonight and tomorrow morning, it’s all gone out the window because the weather is not cooperating. yesterday was beautiful and sunny, and even this morning’s overcast glow was pretty great. but tonight it’s absolutely going to rain, and in the morning it’s going to be cloudy at best. we need a sunrise for the morning photo to look the way i’ve planned it, and even though we will be shooting in a dry location tonight, getting our model to the location dry and unaffected by the weather is not going to be possible given that there will be some climbing and shimmying involved.

in a way, this isn’t such a bad thing since it will let me get caught up on some editing tonight and tomorrow morning. but at the same time, i really need to be earning income from my work to cover the cost of my new camera and hopefully to earn enough to get into the zone where i can afford to buy a drone. not to mention i still need a neutral density filter and a polarizing filter for the landscape work i’m planning during our upcoming travel, as well as the extra batteries i’ll need for the gopro and the eos rp, and the hydrophobic lens cover for the gopro so i don’t have my water videos ruined by water droplets on the lens.

so basically we are talking about $250 worth of accessories still left to buy and another $700 or so for the drone kit with extra batteries, and i’m about $1200 in the hole with this eos rp purchase. there is no way i’m going to make $2,000 between now and june at this rate, unless a couple of big jobs come my way. i do have about $900 worth of work on the horizon, and a decent amount of time to do other work, but all of my outreaches on thumbtack and craigslist over the past few weeks have gone unanswered, so i can’t count on those platforms to bring in more work. on top of that, while instagram brought in one great client that resulted in a few hundred of revenue, the platform hasn’t been generating as much attention as i would like and i’m honestly getting tired of spending so much time combing through pictures that all tend to look the same. that isn’t to say that the photographers in encountering aren’t talented and producing amazing work, but the truth is, there are just so many people using the same cameras, the same lighting, the same editing programs and techniques and getting the same results. it seems like so much work on instagram these days is proof of concept and has no meaning or purpose beyond just being aesthetically pleasing.

this rainy day delay has my inner cynic coming out, i suppose. but i won’t ignore the thoughts that are occurring to me, because truth be told, i need to think about what i want to do with photography that will make my work different and unique from the work of so many others. how can i establish myself as a unique voice worthy of attention?

categories: Daily, Photo
Friday 04.05.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Just Do It

it’s easy to get stuck in the planning phase. there is a hesitation that happens. anxiety that you’re not ready for execution. that you left something out. that there is still some unchecked prep list item that will come back to bite you later.

sure, it is important to measure twice before you cut loose, but sometimes you just gotta fucking cut something. sure you will fuck some stuff up by just pushing out content now, but you’ll learn more from the mistakes that are made as you execute than you ever will from trying to get it perfect before you ship.

once you ship a few imperfect products out the door, you can then take a moment to review what you’ve learned and then step up your game for the next shipment, but you’ve got to get there first.

i come upon this rant because i’ve been at a standstill on the distant future first draft, and for the last week i have been trying to formulate a plan, any plan to shake myself loose. finally, i made a commitment to just open the documents for the first three chapters and spend some time with them. i didn’t commit to do any work, just to open the docs. and lo and behold, the next thing i knew, i was writing the next scene.

i spent a whole week coming up with a new plan, certain that by trying a new process i would find new inspiration. but it’s too early for that. i just need to write. and write. and write. until the first draft is done. stop thinking about it. just do it.

categories: Daily
Thursday 04.04.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Strategy v. Tactic

i started listening to a new (to me) podcast this weekend called Book Launch Show, that is hosted by a guy who has been working in independent publishing for 11 years now (eight years at the time the podcast was launched). he said something in his second episode that really stood out to me about the difference between strategy and tactic. strategy is the blueprint, and tactic is deciding which tools to use to bring the blueprint to life. until i heard him say this, it’s a distinction that i never made consciously and it feels like an epiphany.

for example, i really want to start vlogging, and i want to create a travel video series. i have strategies that i want to use laid out. i’d like a video that has a short intro, and gets straight to the point. i want a video that has talking into the camera, narrative vocals, b roll and graphic text to display numbers, names and anything else that is easier to understand when written than it is when said. that is a strategy. what i haven’t lid out specifically yet are my tactics for deploying this strategy, and that is at least a part of why i’ve failed.

last night i finally took some time to dig around in my unsorted video files and to pick out the clips that i want to include in my iceland video. i labeled them by day, location and type of shot to help organize them, and i’m hoping it will make sequence editing a lot less painful. my next step will be transferring all of my files to one computer - currently they’re half on my laptop and half on my desktop - and once that’s all set, i am going to get to work.

my plan is to build sequences of usable video in a coherent order and then once i have those, write narrative that will fit the length of those clips. my goal is to end up with a video that is no more than 10 minutes - with a preferred cap of seven to eight minutes. five minutes of that should be walking through the journey and the remaining two or three minutes can be talking about logistics of packing and cost. i’m really ok putting out a 12- to 15-minute video as long as it is well segmented, organized and paced. no fluff, no garbage, only premium content.

the point of this video is not publication, but learning. i will publish it, but again, that is not the goal. right now i want to learn from my successes and failures. what did i do right? what did i do wrong? what did i fail to include? how can i fix those problems? can i fix them? and most importantly, how long does it take me to put together a video detailing four days of travel? is it something i can feasibly do while traveling?

example and current predicament aside, the strategy v. tactic mindset is something i need to ingrain into my process so that once strategizing is done, i can consciously move to tactician mode.

categories: Daily
Monday 04.01.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Thorn in the Flesh

something i’ve always been self-conscious about is that i have a lazy eye. it’s not always that apparent and a lot of people say they never even notice it until i tell them about it. but i notice it. it’s especially obvious from certain angles and i always see it clearly when i am looking straight into a camera. of all the reasons i hesitate to vlog, this is at the top of the list.

but i need to get over it. i have shit to say, and i can’t let my own self-consciousness get in the way of saying it. because probably no one will care, and anybody who hates on it is just an asshole that i don’t need following and subscribing anyway. all of this is easier said than done, but i need to say it. i need to get over the hump.

we all have our own thorn in the flesh, that one thing that above all others has a tendency to derail us. most people’s issues are less , shall we say, in your face than mine, but that doesn’t mean i’m the only person that suffers from self-consciousness. there are plenty of straight-eyed people out there making content. maybe i can be the weirdo who is out there making content for all the other weirdos.

the bottom line is, lazy eye or not, i’ve gor a vision and i need to see it through.

categories: Daily
Sunday 03.31.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Ambitions v. Reality

i always want to do more than i have time for. my perfect day would include a photo session, time for full edits, making a vlog, writing a scene in distant future, writing a song, going to the gym, taking a nap, hanging with friends, and traveling to an obscure new country with shanima with enough time to spare to get eight hours of sleep.

as it is, i usually have time for two of those things max, and it’s tough to put them against one another to decide what to do. today i got a haircut and took about 500 photos with shanima on the 7 train platform, in woodside, in a few spots in manhattan, and inside the LIRR station at madison square garden. in the midst of all that we stopped at five senses to get some korean food for lunch. we were supposed to meet some old friends who came to the city for a day, but while we were heading to meet them they told us that they went to the west village - about a half hour from bryant park one way. we were super hungry and didn’t want to add another hour to the commute. it sucks to miss seeing them but there is only so much we could do. at the end of the day we got some dope photos so i am happy we stuck it out instead of packing it in and being social. i do miss my friends, but i am on a vision quest and the visions i saw today were well worth questing after.

categories: Daily, Photo
Saturday 03.30.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Meditation

i mentioned this in my distant future blog the other day, but i think it’s worth bringing it over to this venue as well. one of the consequences of success is that it builds on itself and becomes a living thing that feeds on free time. every moment of my life is occupied these days with either travel planning, photography, writing, work or educating myself on photoshop and premier pro.

something that i’ve always valued - which is why i put in my headphones even when i’m not listening to music on the train, is quiet time for focusing. it’s important to take a few moments to reset, and i haven’t been prioritizing that lately to my own detriment. this week, i started dedicating a portion of my commute time to closing my eyes, controlling my breathing, and quieting my mind.

i am using this time to clear all thoughts and anxieties, resetting back to the most basic starting point of self. once my mental workbench is cleared of all debris, i allow myself to place on thought project upon it and i focus on that singular thing so that i can think around it from new angles and bring it one step closer to completion. the amount of time i have for this is dependent on my blogging and commute time, so i haven’t set a specific quota of minutes, but it seems to be helping already.

categories: Daily
Friday 03.29.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

RP = Really Pleased

today is a momentous day, in that i’ve cleared my entire photography backlog. prior to the last couple of months, that wouldn’t have been a huge accomplishment, because i was only editing in lightroom, but since i’ve stepped up my game and dedicated myself to a higher level of quality through a more refined photoshop editing process, my workflow has bogged down drastically. i talked through some of this in a post a couple of days ago, so i won’t dive into it again, but essentially i am able to fully edit between three and six photos per hour in photoshop, as opposed to hundreds per hour in lightroom.

so today i celebrate the achievement, and i honor it. part of that celebration involves making a purchase that i’ve been contemplating for a couple of months and have been on the fence about. today i saw that one of my favorite youtubers, brendan van son picked up one of these particular items and i saw thebwork he’s done with it and i knew it was time to pull the trigger. today, i bought a canon eos rp from adorama. as i prepare for my upcoming travels, three things stand clear in my mind. first, it’s super small, and packs a big punch for its size. second, it’s by no means the best camera on the market, but it’s a jack of all trades and that is what i need because that is what i am. i do portraits, events, studio and events, day light, low light, sunrise and sunset. i shoot in high light and low light, stills and, soon, video. this camera can do all of that. and in the right hands, it does it all at a professional level. and third, through the end of this month, canon is offering a promotion that includes a free extension grip and ef to rf mount adapter that will allow me to attach all of my current lenses to this body seamlessly. my tamron lenses have received firmware update for compatibility with the eos r and by extension, the eos rp.

using the adorama credit card, i bought the camera on a no-interest payment plan and will only pay $118 per month for the next twelve months. so i literally only need to do one portrait session per month for the next year to cover the cost of the purchase. and if it turns out i don’t like the camera and it’s not for me after all, then i can return it and use the in-store credit to buy something else. but for now, i have no remorse.

categories: Daily, Photo
Thursday 03.28.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Iron Bars

i saw a meme today that was actually pretty amazing. the basic premise was that an iron bar in raw form is worth about $5, but that the value of the metal increases to $12 if shaped into horseshoes, to around $3,000 (if memory serves me right) if shaped into needles, and to around $350,000 if shaped into watch springs. the idea is that what we are worth is dependent on what we allow ourselves to become. personally, i want to be the watch spring version of myself.

part of the reason the needles and watch springs add value is down to the amount of individual pieces that can be made with the iron bar. but what the meme leaves off the table in terms of nuance is that cost of production and the barriers to entry are much higher for these more sophisticated products. and i think that is the part that is probably most important. sure, we take our raw materials in terms of time, energy, intellect and creativity and shape them into many thousands of valuable products, but it takes a great deal more precision, focus, intent and engineering to create the watch spring than it does to pound out a horseshoe. and even the crafting of a relatively simple horseshoe takes a level of skill and competence that has to be earned through time and dedication.

yes, it would be so great to be the watch spring version of myself. but am i willing to do what it takes, including years of study and investment into the tools that make watch spring manufacturing possible? because an iron bar can’t will itself to become thousands of tiny watch springs. desiring the end result is not enough.

so the question becomes: will you allow yourself to be stuck behind the iron bars of inaction and acceptance of what you already are today, or will you put in the work free yourself from the prison of complacency and spring forth into your own personal final form?

categories: Daily
Wednesday 03.27.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Getting Clocked

it hit me this morning that i really need to start accounting for my time spent working on photography more comprehensively. as i’ve begun to spend more time working in photoshop learning and working on more complex editing processes, the amount of time i spend editing has drastically increased, and as a result, it’s forced me to reevaluate my approach to finishing.

consider this example. on saturday, i joined stock for some event photography, and in four hours onsite, i shot roughly 800 photos (it was really. closer to 900 but let’s round it to keep it simple). that’s 200 photos per hour. this morning, i edited the photos. first, i sorted the images and ended up with just over 120 keeper photos. from there, i applied edits, including color corrections, lighting adjustments, crops and geometric alignments. from roughly 7:40am to 9:10am, so 90 minutes of concentrated effort. keeping in mind that i still need to upload the photos, and may need to do custom retouches on a small percentage, let’s call it two hours of editing time for four hours of onsite work. i’ve recently decided that i need to set my rate at $75 per hour, so essentially my price for this gig should be $450. this price doesn’t include travel time or time for coordination and logistics, so it’s incomplete, but at least it sets a rate that is within the market range of what people are charging and what people might be able to afford.

all of this came tumbling out of my brain this morning because i was voicing with stock about how long he should spend editing his own photos from the event on saturday, and i realized that my estimate was shy of the mark. this also comes after last week, stock and swana set out a schedule for his video and editing work, something that really got me thinking. i don’t naturally like to plot out my time, but i need to get over that if i’m going to get ahead of my workflow. i can’t be committing myself to more than i can handle, and the only way to know what i can handle is to map out what i’m actually committing to when i take a job. i’ve known this for a while and it’s loosely guided me effectively until now, but my workflow is increasing and i need to professionalize my approach to the process if i want to keep up.

categories: Daily, Photo
Tuesday 03.26.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Compass

my whole life, i’ve struggled with finding a balance between my strong work ethic, which tends to turn my into a bit of a bull head, and having the patience to work effectively toward a result that is worth achieving. i aspire to achieve this balance in all aspects of my life, but as with most things, the evidence that i still have some work to do is particularly apparent when i review my photography portfolio.

occasionally when i’m running edits, i will find that i’ve almost achieved perfection, only to have missed it by a breath because i didnt take that extra fraction of a second to make sure my focus was perfect, my composition was well-framed or my trigger pull was in line with my breath. or maybe all of those elements were correct, but i didnt maintain them long enough to catch the subject of my photo at the moment when they were finally ready for me.

this makes me wonder how often i’ve missed out on a good thing because i haven’t been patient enough to recognize when it’s right in front of me. how many times have i been a single breathe out of sync with the universe? and how many times have i allowed myself to believe that some external influence was the reason i missed out on something i could’ve achieved with a touch more focus or patience?

i am beginning to understand that photography has become about more than photography for me; it has morphed into a sort of compass on my personal quest for self-mastery. through photography, all of my flaws and strengths are laid bare, and i can examine the results of my state of mind, my adherence to my own principals, and my ability to mix control with acceptance pixel by pixel. i’m grateful for this realization, and for the gift of learning and progress that i’ve been given as a result.

categories: Daily, Photo
Monday 03.25.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Vlog Life

with gopro in hand, yesterday, i started vlogging. and today i kept the momentum going. i have to say, i really enjoy it so far. i thought i was going to feel self-conscious walking down the street talking into a camera, but honestly it wasn’t even an issue. i am really looking forward to sharing the footage, and once i get an intro video posted i’ll ship them out, too.

the vlogs will be one of several initiatives that are being launched in the coming weeks, and will be used as a tool to grow awareness for my work as a photographer and for my love of travel. i am not certain that i’ll plan any sort of consistency around publication in these early stages, but eventually that will be something i want to nail down.

i can’t wait to share these with all of you!!

categories: Photo, Daily
Sunday 03.24.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

The Perfect Vlogging Camera

after a long search, i’ve finally found a setup that i can love. this week i picked up a gopro hero 7 and i am already 100% sold on the amazing capability of this tiny little camera. with limitations related to sensor size and light-gathering in mind, this is my ideal vlogging camera. super compact, super quick to turn on and get recording, and passable in-body audio for a basic walk and talk session with the addition of a fitted windscreen that i picked up on amazon in a two-pack for $9. for less spontaneous recording, i picked up a rode videomicro and a vlogging case with a cold shoe mount and a compartment for the required gopro microphone adapter, a setup that will set me back another $125, but that i believe will be well worth the investment.

for today, i rolled with my gopro strapped on to the action cam mount for my peak design capture plate, and it worked as an impromptu handle for holding the camera out in front of me and vlogging as i walked, but as i listen back there were definitely times when my hand covered some part of the built-in microphone as well as a few instances of handling noise, but honestly on first listen, i don’t think that these issues ruined the footage.

the stabilization on this camera is ridiculous and it makes me wonder how long it will be before phone manufacturers and others catch up with their own version of hypersmooth. it really eliminates the need for gimbals and all that other nonsense, and it makes capturing good clean footage unbelievable easy. personally, i am not a fan of gimbals because they’re finicky and unreliable, in my experience. when i was in iceland, i had a dji osmo mobilethat failed me and ruined my plans for shooting when the weather wasn’t perfect. maybe even worse, though, it ruined my mood and wasted a bunch of my time while i was trying to diagnose the problem. whereas a gimbal will only really work right in good weather - at least the type of gimbals that you can buy for a smartphone - a gopro is weatherproof and won’t let you down in the rain. i should probably just quit my job and become a gopro ambassador. i’m in love.

categories: Daily
Saturday 03.23.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Produce

today was a day full of produce. got a rabies shot in the morning, locked in the conclusion for chapter four in distant future, moved some stories around all day at the office, 90 minutes at the gym, and combed through over 2,000 photos from sunday night’s event photo gig for sus. it’s 2am and i have to wake at 6:15am to get to the city for the morning meeting with stock, then it’s 10-4:30pm working event photos. going to be a long day but looking forward to it.

since stock and i are shooting together, i get to step back a bit and really use this as an opportunity to hunt for kill shots rather than just popping out flesh wounds all day. that is a horrible analogy but i suppose it gets the idea across. i need to sleep but i didn’t want to miss this post. technically it’s late, but i’m not going to let that stop me.

categories: Daily
Saturday 03.23.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Death to the Office Slave

i have a confession. i told you all that i hate my job. that i don’t like my boss because he is always getting on my case. but the truth is, i dint actually hate my job—i just didn’t want to do it. and my boss wasn’t just being a dick to me for no reason. he was frustrated with me because my performance reflected my attitude. i was wrong to blame my boss for my own bad attitude. it sucks to say that but it’s the truth.

about a month or so ago, i hit an inflection point at work, where i realized how interesting my job can be, and how goddamn good at it i am when i really apply myself. to put it bluntly, the shit people are reading in the wall street journal and bloomberg is informed by the people i talk to all day when i’m actually getting on the phone and calling people. and they’re telling me the same things they tell them and more because i know the right questions to ask, and i’m a nice guy about it so they like talking to me. i don’t always beat them to publication, but i almost always put together more fulsome and accurate stories than they do with the help of my team. my job is basically the special forces of journalism. a small elite unit of highly trained and competent, mission-driven people. i’ve been a fool to squander that opportunity and i need to admit that transparently.

just to give a sense of the magnitude of how elite our team is, here are some recruitment numbers for february 2019, which are largely in line with the historical monthly average:

  • Applicants: 1,265

  • Phone Interviews: 546

  • On-Site Interviews: 117

  • Case Studies: 54

  • Final Interviews: 31

  • Offers Extended: 8

  • Offers Accepted: 5

  • Offers Rejected: 2

  • Offers Pending: 1

what that means is that my job has a 0.006324110671937 acceptance rate, and it’s a job i was recruited for. i need to appreciate that and honor it.

today my boss sat down with me for the first time in quite some time and told me that he’s really noticed how much i’ve improved, that i’m doing a really good job, and that he knows he was hard on me but it was never personal, and he’s glad that he hasn’t had to be hard on me recently. it was a very real moment, and one that i appreciate at my core. he was truly human, vulnerable, and humble. and i could tell he expected me to have something to get off my chest. but i didn’t. because when i started pulling my weight, he stopped riding me, and i told him that i noticed and appreciated that. at the end, we talked about grabbing a beer and shook hands awkwardly, had a laugh and everything. it felt good to get that conversation out of the way.

i could have taken the opportunity to air my grievances and to talk about how he wasn’t fair to me, that i felt bullied. but it’s not longer true. he came to the table willing to admit his personal failings, and i appreciated that enough to be vulnerable about my own.

while i am taking the trip i’m taking this summer whether my job will let me keep my job or not, i can now say that my work on journalism has finally helped me to evolve to my next level. the last vestiges of immaturity and self-consciouness have been stripped away. i no longer feel like my boss is forcing me to do things i don’t want to do, but instead i feel compelled to fulfill my responsibilities as an internal matter. instead of dreading my day at the office and daydreaming about some other life, i recognize the privilege that being in my position represents.

no longer will i trudge my way to the office. instead i will own it. i will not be motivated only by my wages. i will appreciate what i have until such time as i cast it aside not because i am not a good fit for it, but because it is not a good fit for me.

i proclaim death to the office slave, birth to my own self mastery.

categories: Daily
Thursday 03.21.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

The Fallacy of Nowness

a lot of my life has been squandered on trivial pursuits of the moment that always seemed so monumental and important at the time but really added nothing to - and in probably more cases than not actually detracted from - my life. this fallacy of nowness interrupts personal and professional growth in so many ways, and it’s taken me a long time to come to this realization. i’m still evolving on this issue, and don’t have any final answers regarding the proper balance between flexibility and adherence to the long-term plan, but i do have some theories.

the truth is, i didn’t realize i had a problem until i got married. my wife, shanima, is a plan addict. she’s rarely swayed by the spontaneous and tends to become disoriented when things don’t go according to plan. i, on the other hand, am something of a trapeze artist when it comes to swinging from one plan to another. and if a plan totally falls apart, i am generally able to revel in the entertainment that creates, and to fluidly adapt. in its raw form, my ability to be flexible is a positive trait. it becomes problematic, however, when i let my ability to flex become the substance of how i live my life. what i mean to say is that living in the moment isn’t a long-term plan, and it wastes so much of the capacity that i have as a living breathing thinking and learning human to grow myself consciously over time. in order to do that, i need to make - and force myself to stick to - my own plans.

it is interesting for me to contemplate the reason that i preferred so long to live in the moment. i didn’t want to be beholden to anyone or anything. i didn’t want to commit to one thing because part of me feared missing out on some other thing that had not yet presented itself as an option. the problem with this fallacy is that one of the major consequences of living moment by moment, at least in my experience, was that i was missing out on more opportunities than i was availing myself to because i had no long game. no savings account, no credit and no capacity to even contemplate anything more than a vague and unspecific version of the high life in my future. and as a result of this, i became a wage slave, living paycheck to paycheck and working at least as much as i would be working in a career, and for less money to boot.

another aspect of the fallacy of nowness is the appearance that life is easier when you don’t concern yourself with the long-term, that we can’t know what will come tomorrow so we should live our best life today. the problem is that when life doesn’t end today, and tomorrow comes again and again and again, spewing itself in our faces, it brings its own challenges. we risk getting caught in a loop of fulfilling only our basest needs, a daily cycle that is even less desirable than the alternative, which is the path of career, the game of chutes and ladders. to be blunt, there are plenty of people living in the moment who spend their days trudging through subway cars telling tired tales of their need for just one more dollar to get something to eat, or a ticket to some other place where things are easier that they’ll never actually find.

i write all of this to give encouragement, as hard to believe as that might be. i want to give encouragement to those who struggle to actualize themselves, those who fight against their own inability to turn down the temptations of nowness and instead keep eyes on prizes that are so much more fulfilling than a few moments of aimless bliss. i know that it is possible to make the shift from a now person to a now and then person, and i can tell you with confidence that the latter is far superior in every way.

categories: Daily
Wednesday 03.20.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Change of Plans

i’ve been thinking. about the iceland travel video. what if the thing i set out to do is not what it actually turned into? what if there is a better way to use that footage? maybe the narrative i wrote in advance is a square peg, and the trip itself was a round hole.

as i look back on my footage, i realize that in so many of the clips, something happened to make it less than perfect. on the first day, the osmo mobile wouldn’t work because it was damp and drizzling outside. and the cheap action camera i bought on a sale at bhphotovideo produced footage that was barely usable. oh and of course there was that time the dji mavic air crashed into the only copse of trees in the whole damn country.

maybe the video i need to make is about all of the times my gear failed me, and how the pursuit of a travel video almost ruined my travel experience. that would be a more honest account than i’ve been envisioining all this time.

i still very much intend to make a travel video detailing the logistics of my journey in an infotainment format, which is what i set out to do in iceland, but maybe that is something i’ll have to accomplish on the next go round.

there are a lot of maybes here, and that is because i’ve still not committed to this idea. i may still move ahead with some version of the video i intended to make, while also making a video of the type i’m describing here as a separate item. i could see this working, as long as i find the time to actually do the work.

categories: Daily
Tuesday 03.19.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Running Down The Dream

out of all the live music experiences i’ve had in my life, there are a select few that stand out as the most monumental and life-altering. one of the standout moments was at a randall’s island concert in new york in 2006. i had won a drawing through a local radio station in seattle for round trip airfare, accommodations and tickets to the show for two almost by default since - from what i understand - no one else even tried. the station had come out to everett for a weeknight show that a friend was headlining and it was a dud - sometimes in seattle even the best acts played to empty rooms. a couple days after the show, i got a call from the radio station - it was an unknown number so i almost didn’t pick up, but i’m by nature a curious person so i took the call. they told me i’d won and that i needed to pick someone to go with me and come get the tickets by the following monday. of course my first thought was to find a female companion to bring along, so i spent the weekend working on my woo game. after that totally failed, i ended up bringing the guitar player in the band i was in at the time, who was one of the coolest dudes i’ve ever known.

the trip to new york was my first, and much in the way that a random trip to seattle a few years earlier had foreshadowed an unexpected residency in the pacific northwest, this trip ended up being a bit of foreshadowing for a move to the big apple five years later. we spent some time walking around the city on our first of the three days we stayed in the city, walking through times square and visiting the massive crater that was the site of the 9/11 terror attack. all of it was so surreal and i’ll just skip over the feels from that day to avoid losing track of th narrative here.

after a full day of enjoying the city, the next morning we headed out to randall’s island for the concert, which was being put on by heineken, and included a wide array of artists, notables being busta rhymes, ll cool j, the foo fighters and as today’s headline would suggest, tom petty. the show was pretty packed, with two stages running most of the day, and there were some other amazing artists i’d never heard of on the second stage. the only problem with the show was that drinks were way too expensive - heineken was kind enough to cover our grave and entrance expenses, but they cut us off at the tap. jian and i both got one beer, but neither of us had a lot of cash so that was about all we could afford. there were plenty of wiffs of good weed in the air, though, so i grabbed jian by one shoulder and said something to the order that he should follow me and i would find us a circle to join. i weaved my way through the crowd, looking hopefully at every circle of smokers we passed but none looked very inviting - these new york smokers were not your sharing is caring seattle types. after only a couple of minutes, though, as i was approaching a circle of what looked to be some affluent young dilettantes, one of the girls who was puffing lazily at a massive joint looked me directly in the eyes and threw the finger-length, still burning joint to the ground. without slowing down or missing a step, i casually leaned down and scooped it up, and kept walking for a few dozen yards before stopping taking a massive pull, and turning around to blow a cloud of sour diesel into jian’s delightfully surprised face. he hadn’t even realized i had picked up the joint and we happily puffed away for several minutes, all of the soreness from a cramped flight and a long day of walking around the city falling off our bones.

pleasantly stoned, we made our way to the stage and took in the wonder that was ll cool j from the front row. he was followed by foo fighters, who put on an amazing show. and then tom petty and the heartbreakers took the stage and rocked my fucking world. they played long, live versions of every song that you’d want to hear, and of course during last dance with mary jane, the whole crowd started passing around joints, all of the previous reticence to share gone up in smoke. at some point a girl in a miniskirt decided she wanted to ride on my shoulders for a song, and i was happy to oblige. after her not-so-free minded male friend found her there, he kindly towed her away, giving me a scowl that i shrugged off. once they were out of sight and mind, the pulsing music began, and i was struck full force with a musical epiphany in the form of an 18-minute long, unearthly rendition of running down the dream. to this day, i have a visceral memory of every detail of that performance.

—

cut forward to today. working a full-time job while also trying to run down a full-time set of aspirations leaves very little time for sleep, or even rest for that matter. after slogging it out for a full day saturday at the editing desk, and then knocking out a couple of hours of edits on sunday, i shot an event from 6:30pm to 10pm last night and didn’t make it home until well after midnight. and of course i was out of bed before 7am as per the usual weekday routine to help shanima get out the door before getting ready to leave for work myself.

last night, stock and i were talking, and i think we’re going to be raising the bar on our mutual accountability. we both have things we struggle with when it comes to budgeting time and resources, and while our daily voice memo exchanges and blog posts have been a means of encouraging progress, we both think it’s time for another microevolutionary step. we are committed to running down the dream, even if it means we will have a little less time for dreaming (within reason).

categories: Daily
Monday 03.18.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

Action

as we inch closer to our travels this year, the list of photo gear i want to acquire for my travel work is growing ever shorter. this morning i pulled the trigger on a gopro hero 7 purchase, and with a couple of accessories, that is going to be my main vlogging camera while we travel.

the big reason we need the gopro is because our first stop on our big asia trip this summer is cairns, australia, where we’ll be heading out for a couple of days in the great barrier reef. there is no way in hell i’m not bringing the best of the best for that trip, and with the new in-camera stabilization i’m sure we’ll get some beautiful, usable footage from that excursion.

beyond that, i really want to vlog the trip, and i don’t want to have to haul around a gimbal that has to be set up every time i want to shoot something. that’s a sure way to miss the moment. i also don’t want something conspicuous that will get in the way of the fun. i have the peak design capture system and the action camera mount, and i can probably get really decent footage by just latching the gopro on there for my walk around motion time lapses.

with this purchase, i’ve made a promise to myself: that i will absolutely follow through on vlogging. and that means i have to action some items in the bin. this weekend, i cleared out most of my backlog, working through all of the final edits on several photo shoots, with only a handful of images left to retouch from a mid-february engagement shoot. the retouches aren’t that intense, but they do take time. this morning i made some moves to speed up the workflow by creating some actions for dodging and burning so that i don’t have to manually create layers for those processes every time i edit a photo.

once these edits are done, i’m going to turn my attention more fully to my iceland video and to working on the distant future fiction project. of course i still have plenty of photo work ahead of me, with at least two more outfits to photograph for suswana, as well as seven more images for a separate series. i’m also still working on setting up a grouped headshot session and will be working with shanima - and potentially a few others - to build a lookbook for her modeling work and for my website. and of course, right now i’m in transit to the annual yp festival, where i’ll be photographing the program this evening, and i have two more events this month on the calendar. plus one more photo shoot next weekend for another client and friend. then next month i have an engagement photo shoot scheduled at brooklyn botanical gardens, and in june i’ll be shooting an intimate central park wedding. so by slowing down, of course i mean that i’ll be as busy as ever.

the key to accomplishing all of this will be action. actioning the items as they come without delay or hesitancy, not allowing a backlog to build. i also need to clearly communicate that i can only provide a limited number full edits, because they take a long time to complete. this is my plan. now it’s time for action.

categories: Daily, Photo
Sunday 03.17.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 

All Day

i’m late for saturday, but it was a sacrifice i had to make. i helped a bit in the kitchen today, and we hit the gym for an hour and a half, but outside of that and eating, i was in front of the computer planning for our big asia trip and editing photos from a fashion series i shot for suswana. now i finally realize why photographers limit the number of edits that they provide to their clients. 26 photos took me several hours to edit. i’m happy with the results, though and it was really good practice. my technique is becoming refined and i’m happy about that.

i’ve not been sharing photos quite as frequently the past couple of weeks, and part of the reason is that i really want to start posting more refined images. the crazy thing is that there is a series of edits that i still need to do to these images to make them pop on instagram, including resizing and sharpening them so that they aren’t compressed by the insta algorithm.

for now, i’m just happy that the full-res edits are done. that’s accomplishment enough for one day.

categories: Daily, Photo
Sunday 03.17.19
Posted by Chase Collum
 
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