3 Weeks x 3 Trips

I think I have finally settled on my trips for this year. The opening and closing of the "The Train Is Coming" Show along with the PhotoNOLA photography festival opening made figuring out when I could and could not go difficult. When you throw in statuary pay day shifts at work (I am trying not to miss any of these days as they pay 2.5 times an hour) and the holidays of other guards, it was near impossible to figure things out.

The way my security schedule works is I work 1 week on and 1 week off (12 hour shifts), so if I take a week of holidays I actually can get 3 weeks off work, 2 weeks can turn into 5 and 3 weeks can become 7. I only get a total of 3 weeks holiday time as a guard even thou I have worked security for over 16 years. As I pointed out thou with my current shift schedule I can come off a weeks work and fly the next day allowing me to extend the time I can be away from the job.

Initially like last year I wanted to spread my 3 weeks of holidays over a 3 week trip and a 5 week trip, that did not work out. Then I thought of taking all 3 in a row, allowing me a 7 week trip. I think thou I will go the most expensive way and the most tiring way (lots of airplane time) but also the way that will give me the most shooting days, a total of 9 weeks.

3-3 week trips will cost a fortune in airfare but it gives me loads of options. I can go 3 times to Mae Sot to work on "The Families Of The Mae Sot Dump" project, which is what I will do if I can get the grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. If I do not get the grant I can use the trips in different ways. I will take the first trip to Mae Sot and then after that I can either return or take trips to other locals, Cambodia? Burma? Africa? Central America? heck I might even go to photograph Inuit people in Northern Canada. Not sure how I am going to pay for all this yet, I might try for another travel grant from the Edmonton Arts Council.

It will all be very expensive but the flexibility and the 9 whole weeks (including travel time) to make photographs is something I cannot pass up. I have to make the photos while I am physically fit enough and in good enough health to do them, I am 48 and counting.

I feel optimistic about the future, I think my weight and physical fitness is also improving. Things are looking good for future photographs, there are so many stories I want to tell, so many faces and lives I want to show others.

Now if I can just print this coming Kaasa show without collapsing in my developer, everything will be great!