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.