The Weekly(ish) Update - Issue 0001

The Weekly(ish) Update
18th JULY 2008
ISSUE ONE

I have decided to do this because I want a way to include my family and friends in what I am doing, I have never been very good at keeping in regular contact with anyone, and I have recently decided that this is something I would like to change.

I am working towards starting my own business at the moment, it is something I have thought about doing for many years, and so including everyone in that process seems like a good idea.

I figure that sharing this new adventure will assist me in various aspects of the project, and I expect some of you will even offer advice, opinions, praise and criticism, but ultimately you all are now a part of my next great adventure.

So what am I doing?

Well, at the moment I am in Wellington, I am staying at my adopted parents house which has its ups and its downs.

One of the down sides is that I still feel as if I am treated differently, that our level of respect for each other is on completely different levels, but one of the upsides is that I get to see my two nieces regularly, Noelle (three) and Delilah (one) always manage to make me happy, because within the knowledge I am lucky enough to share 'moments' with each, I know regardless of what they do they are simply being themselves and always give me a reason to smile.

The main reason I have chosen to stay here is because I know this will be the last time we share any great amount of time together, so being here is my opportunity to be a part of the girls life, regardless of how I feel about the way the rest of us treat each other, all I can do is try to be honest with myself and accept that I only have control over my actions and no one else.

It is weird living in Wellington again, I have not yet made any real friends, I have not seen any of my old friends either, so I kinda miss the people who I have spent time with over the past few years, which is basically everyone I have offered the option of reading this, and a few others I have lost contact with.

Its funny, this time last year I had heaps of friends, and I was making new ones every day, but when I sent everyone the option of receiving a regular email letting you all know what I was doing, only about a dozen people replied, which I guess could indicate how well I maintain my friendships, or the fact I have the contact details of the wrong people “,)

When I was driving the bus the hardest part of what I did was knowing that I would only get to share a few moments with everyone I met and that I was ultimately restricted to a timetable, that I would have to move on regardless of what I wanted to do.

One of the best parts was that I would be able to visit everyone I knew almost anywhere in New Zealand within a three week period, which for me , someone who is not good at maintaining relationships, was the perfect way to allow friendships to grow, and they did.

Sure I miss the driving, the scenery and the lifestyle, but mostly I miss the people, I miss all of my friends.

My new job is part time, at the moment the only hours I am guaranteed are Saturday and Sunday nightshirt, from 11pm until 7am, and this is OK cos I need the money, so I am grateful for the hours.

I sometimes get a few extra shifts which keeps my head above water so to speak, and in all honesty I am lucky to have walked into a job that allows me to study and work towards starting my own business, admittedly a lot slower than originally planned due to my financial restraints, but I am getting there and have never given up regardless of what happened previously.

The job itself is OK, not great but OK, and it basically consists of driving Air New Zealand staff from one car park to another, picking them up and dropping them off.

Most of the staff keep to themselves and so there is very little interaction between us, which makes things a little boring, some of the staff are cool, friendly and polite etc. and a couple of them are so 'ungrateful' they do nothing but complain.

My boss is an old guy in his sixties who is one of those genuinely nice people that are completely honest with everyone, which as far as I am concerned is awesome and we get along great, I genuinely appreciate having the job and he genuinely appreciates me being there.

It is funny actually, most of the guys I work with are heaps older, which is the opposite of when I was driving the buses (for those of you who don't know I am almost forty), so listening to them talk about not being able to poo for a week and their other major problems in life makes me feel young again, not that I have ever really felt old.

I have always done what I felt was right, or what felt right, throughout my life and so ultimately my life is my own. I use to get people telling me they thought I was a lot younger than I am regularly, other people simply wouldn't judge me by my age and accepted me for who I am, which I think allows a certain freedom to be yourself around them, because regardless of what people think, at the end of the day I am me, and 'me' is not old.

A couple of months ago someone told me something that was a huge compliment, they told me that I was the one thing that they would remember about New Zealand after being here for a year, something that made me think about how right I am to be true to myself regardless of other peoples opinions, because at the end of the day I am the one who is responsible for myself, in every situation.

For those of you who have seen me 'unrestricted' and 'freely myself', you will know that I can be infectiously happy, and kinda loud, you will know that I am capable of bouncing off the walls of other peoples happiness for our enjoyment, for hours and hours, if the people around me simply accept me for being who I am, because despite what some people think I am not a product of my environment, I am a product of my own desire to be happy and unreservedly share that happiness with others.

It has taken me a lot of hard work to be me, I have suffered tremendous depression, and given so much of myself away through various addictions, it has taken me so many 'life lessons' to be where I am today, knowing I still have so much more to learn.

I have had various things influence my life, I have done various life courses, escaped experiences that have trapped others, and I have been lucky enough to grow up being honest to myself and trying to be honest to those around me, because I have learnt that is the right way for me to live.

I think that one of my biggest lessons was 'faith' that no one intentionally hurts someone else, that we each are capable of doing some truly horrific things if we allow ourselves to, but no one intentionally hurts anyone else.

This was recently explained to me quite simply, I was told that if people did intentionally hurt each other then when we got in our car and drove down the road we would not have 'faith' that the person who was driving towards us in the other lane would remain on their side of the road, and we do.

Sure accidents happen, circumstance puts people in different places in their life and situations can dictate reactions that are unpredictable for a variety of reasons, but factually, we all remain on our side of the road, we all are ultimately responsible for ourself.

So I have reached a point in my life now where I feel the need to clean myself up a little bit for the future, I have discovered a desire to treat myself better than I have been treating myself previously, which all seemed to happen in the middle of last year when I would have appeared to be living my life to the fullest... Ironic huh?

That was also about the same time I decided to do a Diploma in Photography, a decision aided in the making by my Aunty Jan, when I was staying at my birth fathers place and he kept reminding me that I needed to save some money.

I am not fussed by the qualification, it is the information that the course provides me with that I am interested in, it is that information that will greatly assist my skills, and so I committed myself to the course as a Christmas present to myself last year.

I got seriously distracted with the events that arose from my (unfair) dismissal, but have now completed two of twelve assignments, getting 80% in the first, and 70% in the second.

The course itself is bloody hard as I have a huge amount of trouble concentrating when reading, words blend and I get confused halfway through sentences more than ever before, the second assignment took me two months just to understand what was going on as it was fairly technical, and I only managed that after getting help via other books and reference material that explained the course material in several different ways, eventually leading me to a rough understanding of what was going on.

I kinda let myself down a little bit by submitting a photo that was required as part of the second assignment that I had second thoughts about submitting, as I thought it could have been better and was not as good as it could have been, but I learnt my lesson and that wont happen again.

As well as the Diploma in Photography I have been doing research and studying various business related courses etc., including one from the tax department, and I am finding a lot of other information on the internet, all designed to give me the most opportunity possible to succeed.

Everything I am doing is designed to put myself in the best position to make my business a success, because ultimately that responsibility lies with me. I am still a few months away from officially starting my business, but at the moment I am doing things to ensure that I give myself every opportunity to be as successful as possible.

I actually began to conceive the original idea at the beginning of 2008 when I was driving buses around New Zealand, taking photos of groups in some of the most scenic places imaginable and from that point photography became something more than just part of what I did each day as a part of my job.

I brought my first 'proper' camera not long after and found myself taking photos more and more outside of my job, even though I did not really have any idea what I was doing technically.

I would see an image in my head and muck around with the different dials and settings until the image I had on the little screen at the back of the camera matched the image I had in my mind, often missing out on images because I did not know what I was doing, or in rare cases capturing an image by fluke, which I guess kept me going.

I deleted a lot of photos, keeping only a few that I liked, and eventually someone saw these and commented that they thought I had an eye for it, which only encouraged me further.

Towards the middle of last year I lost my drivers licence for three months because I had received too many speeding tickets, so I got to spend time with various members of my family and a few friends, including at one point my Aunty Jan (who passed away early this year after a long battle with cancer) and it was with her that as I previously mentioned that the original idea presented itself and I made a few goals.

My ideal goal would be to travel the world going to Formula One races, V8 Supercar races, Moto GP and World Rally Championship events, taking photos of the best race cars in the world and selling Limited Edition framed prints of those photos, making a good living and donating a percentage of each print to charity.

I know that is something I am going to have to work up to, so prior to that I would like to put myself into a position where I can take photos of New Zealand and Australian cars (old hot rods, race cars and street cars) and bikes amongst awesome scenery and sell Limited Edition framed prints, using pristine local timbers for the frames and high quality art paper and inks that last over 100 years for the images, once I have experimented to see how big the market is, both here and overseas.

It may turn out that I sell Limited Edition scenery photos with a similar high quality to get myself started, it may turn out that it becomes my main market and the autosport becomes a hobby, but regardless I am committed to this project and not restricting myself to any one thing.

Due to my financial situation I think initially I will be taking scenery photos and selling them at the market on Saturdays and Sundays to get some cash together first, which is what I want to do because I want to make this business grow from that into my ideal goal of being able to travel the world doing what I want to, and that all must start from me doing what is necessary to make it work, from being prepared to work to achieve the success I want.

All things must begin somewhere, and after months of deciding I have finally come up with a name for the business...

CUSTOM VISION PHOTOGRAPHY

… and I have chosen this name because I think it defines what the business is all about, my photography, and what I want from the business.

The name is representative of my vision to help others which I will initially be doing by donating a percentage of what I earn to charity, which will probably be my favourite charity Canteen, cos as far as I am concerned it is all about the kids.

There are a few things I would like to finish this off with, the first is letting you know what my goals are for this week, and the second is I would like to tell you what I have learned.

This week I do not have much work, my two weekend shifts plus a day shift on Friday, so I have a bit more time to study this coming week than I did this past week, I would like to try and complete my next assignment in my Photography Diploma this week to keep the momentum going, and I would also like to explore a good way to get myself started and see what markets are open and when in Wellington.

I also have to do something about organising a new printer, something that will be suitable for me printing my own small prints, the bigger ones will have to wait until I get myself a little more sorted out. I have heard a few good things about the HP C6380 Photosmart printer so I will have a look at that to begin with.

I also have started myself on an exercise program that I have been doing for a few weeks now, Monday, Wednesday and Fridays I start the day nice and early and am in the gym by 7.30am(ish) which I think is $25 a week well spent, and Tuesday and Thursdays I take myself for a bike ride, again by 7.30am(ish). I enjoy starting the day off knowing I am doing something good for me and am slowly getting into making this a normal part of my day.

The other thing I want to do this week is get some information on creating a Photography Portfolio, it is included later on in my course, but there is a national photography course run by Canon that I am going to enter, and I want to begin looking at what is required to at the very least give it my best, so I have to put a little money aside to get myself a book off the internet that shows me other peoples ideas, and I am sure if I look I will find something that is exactly what I am looking for.

And finally, What have I learnt this week???

- I have learnt that sometimes when it seems like no one cares that is the time to care about yourself, that you are your own best friend and worst enemy.

So there we have it folks, the first issue of The Weekly(ish) Update has come to the end. I am already looking forward to the next one.

Till soon.. Stay safe.. Be You!!!

.K

PS. Next issue I will include a few photos... And if anyone knows someone who would like to know what I am up to, please ask them to email me so I can add them to my contact list.