Its hard to be a sports photographer with a 10-22mm.
~DB
2010 Goals – Review.
On the 4th of Jan 2010 I wrote a list of 52 Goals I wanted to achieve in 2010. Here is the list of the ones I feel i semi/fully completed, and my notes on them.
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4. Meet 52 new people. – I lost count of the new people that I met this year but I’m sure I got close with all my new friends from FWF and America. 
5. Go on 20 dates. - I stopped counting this one, and just went with it. 
6. Publish 52 posts on photography – WordPress tells me I’m up to 30 Posts. I got close, but no cigar.
7. Have half of those posts with my Diana Camera – I stuck to digital this year, I however have discovered that having a $4 disposable camera with you at all times is the best possible investment.
8. Continuously say ‘Yes’ to things. Change “No” to “Now” – I believe I took this up a little more once I left home. Having said yes to going on a 2.5 week bender with Laz around the West Coast of America to follow bands arounds still is the best thing I’ve done in America.
9. Get involved in a sport again. – Working at a snow resort makes this one pretty hard not to do. I now snow board and no doubt will be annoying my friends to go on winter trips with me to NZ, Japan, Canada, USA or Europe to chase the snow. 
10.Lean to dance (Latin?, Swing?, other) $160/8 Week Course – I started this one with an intro swing lesson but left the country. I have picked up a few steps of the Melbourne Shuffle out of prue bordem standing at the lift and trying to stay warm.
11.Enjoy the little moments. Stop and realise the moments. - The one person that reflects this statement that I have met on my travels is Giselle Widmer. She is forever thanking life for providing her with opportunities and with photos like this, who could blame her.
12. Get out there and shoot with 5 Pros. - I got out with Mark Lobo and Paul Farris.
16. Maintain the constant daily exercise – Standing at a lift 10 hrs a day for 4 days then snowboarding for 8hrs on the other 3 days. I think I got there!
17. Attend as many music gigs/festivals as humanly possible. - Woodford, Sunset Sounds, BDO, Future Music, Laneway, Soundwave, Particle Gigs(LA & San Diego), Catskill Chill (NY, USA), Austin City Limits (Austin, USA), Phish Shows in Colorado. I think I nailed this one.
18. Buy and then Read 10 books. (The Pinstriped Prison – Lisa Pryor, I Am Ozzy – Ozzy Ozbourne, The Game – Neil Struss (Re-Read), King of Fear – Hunter S. Thompson, The Me Myth – Andrew Griffiths, Crush It – Gary Vaynerchuk, The 4 Hour work week – Tim Ferris, Hells Angles – Hunter S. Thompson, Vagabonding – Rolf Potts, Outlaw Journalist – William Mckeen)
20. Go wakeboarding at least 24 times. I only got up 3 times, but after snowboarding for 6 months I’m pretty sure the new skills will overlap!
25. Go on a photography course – I never got out on a 8 week course however I did spend a day out with Paul Ferris and did a night photography course in Brisbane.
35. Go to a Speed Dating event – I attended the Valentines day event held on Caxton St with Mr Nathan Byrne
36. Learn to rock climb – $190 – I completed a 4 week climbing coursewith Urban Climb at west End.
41. Leave the country (NZ doesn’t count) - I’m currently writing this post in Colorado, USA and have been in the USA since June.
52. Find a form of income that one day I can have the time to complete all these things! – After viewing the way the US does business I have a few ideas of my own to bring back to Australia.
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So I got 18/52 complete to some form or another. I’m happy with a third complete; it definitely makes looking back on the year easier to see what you have achieved and where you spent your time.
/DB/
4th of July (Fireworks)
4th of July in America. We were woken up by a bass band, had hotdogs for lunch, spent $10,000 on fireworks and then went to the local bar. (Shots taken on my new 70-200mm @ F2.8.)
Posted in Travel, USA
Tagged 4th of July, fireworks, Independence Day, mr david ball
Skinners Falls, Hancock
At camp we are told when our days off are. We get 3 days off every 3 weeks however there is no normally to it. Currently I’ve worked 19 days in a row and our next day off is the 6th of July then 12th of July then the 27th of July. Camp plans trips for us (New York City, Boston, Philly, etc) and we get to choose if we want to go on them. On this particular day we were offer a trip to Ithaca (A small college town somewhere in upstate (3hrs north of NYC) new york) but we decided to head to the falls instead.
You lose all track of time at camp as we don’t have mobile phone reception, we have one tv in the staff lounge and we don’t get the news (American or International) via any means. (*Even if we did get the American news they don’t report on anything outside the US) Days are just days. Everything is provided at camp (food, laundary, bunks) thus money now doesn’t play a major part in life. Obviously you need money for the bar but when drinks are $2 for beer and $4 for spirits (A pour of a spirit is half the glass, none of this measured crap) money doesn’t really matter. Its funny how the game changes.
Posted in Travel, USA
Tagged mr david ball, skinners falls
NY
New York City:
I spent 7 days in NYC and fell in love with it. Chaos. Total and utter choas. Driving. No one indicates, people pull up anywhere, people honk continuously, people jay walk and yet it is beautiful. NY people just deal with it. They don’t get angry when they get cut off in traffic, or blocked in, they just deal with it.
As previously posted America has free wireless everywhere so they don’t bother with internet cafes. I’m looking into a netbook but I’ll get there.
Couch surfing in Brooklyn has been the highlight so far. Arik, Kate, Mike, Mikki, Nora and Yael were just awesome. 4 Days with them:
- Walked around Harlem (The Bronx) @ 10:30pm with Arik and 2 girls
- Caught the subway home after midnight from the Bronx
- Had beers and porridge @ 1pm for breakfast
- Tried NY Pizza & Hotdogs
- Got woken up by a jackhammer about 9 feet from my head
- Made out with an Austrian.
I also saw the statue of liberty (photos) wall street, Donald trump (photos), ground zero, times sqaure (photos), phantom of the opera (broadway) and probably a million other things I’ve forgotten.
Camp:
For the past 7 days I’ve been driving from camp to Newick airport to pick up kids,nurses and paint. So I can seriously say I’ve driven for 24 hours on the wrong side of the road. Yesterday I was at the airport for 10 hours getting kids off of planes. They are all here now and in another 3 weeks we’ll do it all over again on change over day (the camp has 4 x 3week sessions. Some kids stay for 1 x 3 weeks, some 4 x 3 weeks.)
The councilors are awesome. About 40% of us here are Australian so I’m not left out. Scottish, English, Welsh, South African. The food is alright considering they are feeding 1000+ people 3 times a day. I will get fat though.
The camp computers are old school macs. You remember those macs we got new in grade 8 in mr finolios class? We have those. So email is hard enough, photo editing would be impossible. Thus the lack of photos atm. As I said, I’m looking into a laptop, but size and weight is an issue.
So obviously now that things have settled down I should get afternoons off. I haven’t taken any shots of the campus yet but its a typical campus; except for the gym. The gym is better than any fitness first you have been in.
