At the beginning of the lock down during this pandemic, I had a couple of big thoughts… I’d write a book or I’d complete my photography guidebook to the Grand Marais area. I was going to lift weights. I was going to break my social media addiction. I was going to go out and take pictures locally more.

In the end, I didn’t do any of that, except lift weights. In fact, I haven’t shot much. Last year in the months from March to June, I shot 150 three-star-and-above images (and I still haven’t edited all the images from that time period). This year, I shot 42. The nine images I shot in March were from before the lock down. I shot three in April when out for the news.

There are excuses: 1. we didn’t know how safe or dangerous it was to be outside, 2. I was considered non-essential so couldn’t travel for work, 3. the constant stress of the pandemic, 4. No school meant I was homeschooling my kid, 5. My wife worked from home and took over in the afternoon, which meant that I wanted to hang out with the family, 6. generally feeling depressed.

I did do some things. I worked to develop an online Lightroom Class. I’m in the middle of teaching it now. I will likely offer it again and maybe turn it into a downloadable course. I ended up selling a bunch of prints to the consumer market. I think I’m a little bit ahead of last year. I took out a PPP loan, and because somehow I ended up getting two because of a screw up in the SBA system (I only received money from one) it felt like a full time job getting it sorted out. I’ve applied for multiple grants which take a long time. I got one of the many I applied for. I need to write one this week as well. I wrote two COVID-19 risk management plans for my workshops — one for federal workshops and then a new one that took everything from the federal plan and incorporated Minnesota guidance. Who knew I’d be doing so much that is doing nothing for what I do: take photos, sell photos and teach people how to take photos. That’s the new normal it seems.

There is some fun and good news.

I’m doing a Composition for Landscape Photography Webinar on July 14 from 7pm to 8:30pm.

Register here.

A former student of mine is running the webinar through her photography company. I hope you can attend.

But it still doesn’t seem like I’m doing as much as I should.

Are you in the same boat?

Anyway, I did take a few pictures that I love.