Why has it taken a year to get out again?

At the end of the last blog, we were in October 2023. I’d had successful and enjoyable first photography trip and enthusiasm was high.

I even bought a better camera pretty much as soon as I got back.

Yet, it was over a year before I even looked at the GoPro footage I’d gotten, and made the short YouTube video about the trip.

The grand plans I’d had around photography pretty much ceased as soon as I got back and reality struck.

2023 had been a challenging year, mostly in a good sense, but I was tired. The business had been sold, but I was still working in it full time. I was still working hours that were too long, and as I’d done for a long time before then, sacrificing my fitness and health for work.

After a few more months ‘plugging away’, I set my eyes on the future.

The sale of the business had put me in the extremely privileged position where I could essentially rethink my career, from scratch.

I could rethink how I spent my time, and why.

In May 2024 I dropped to 4 days a week to effectively buy myself some time to think. Quickly this became time to spend in the campervan (which I’d changed for a newer van not long after the last trip), and I spent almost every weekend between May and October in either the Lake District or Snowdonia.

I’d managed to focus on myself instead of work for the first time in a decade and my health was improving.

During the summer I spent a week in Czechia with Scouts and Explorer Scouts which really helped remind me how much I used to enjoy travelling.

I had a work trip planned to Stockholm for September too so I made sure I got a car so I could explore. I only had 1 day to explore while I was in Stockholm, but I did almost 200 miles that day venturing as far from the city as I could and still make it back in time to get my flight.

I think I made the decision subconsciously sometime in August, but once I was back from Czechia I started to discuss the idea that I would step back from the Managing Director role. I was almost 4 years into the role, 1 year since the acquisition and the passion I once had for the business was gone.

It was time to let someone else take on the challenge.

With that move, the plan was to move to a shorter work week, and free up more time to do other things.

What other things was still undecided but I quite liked the freedom of that.

Photography?

I suppose I should talk about photography at some point though if that is what this blog is to be about!

During my many nights in my van looking over the Lake District and Snowdonia I’d been watching lots of photography YouTube finding myself almost jealous of the trips that people were having.

While it would be 2025 before I was able to fully step back from the role I was beginning to feel free, so this was my chance to give it another go.

So once the news had broken about my stepping back, I booked a few campsites in Scotland again and planned to redo roughly the same trip from the year before. This time would be different though, I was spending more time learning about photography, so whereas the previous year I knew nothing, I now knew almost nothing.

Next time I’ll write about the trip itself, how that went, and how little I’d actually learnt about photography in the year since my last trip.