2 Years A Vagabond

On 17 January 2015, I celebrated my second anniversary on the road. Two years have gone by so quickly, this realisation hit and ran.

I have absolutely nothing profound to say about the last two years. It’s been a whirlwind, one that’s often left me staggering from the highs and lows. It’s always intense. Life is unpredictable. I’m still catching my breath, and my memories.

A timeline of notable milestones, by location, because my memories are heavily flavoured by place.

2013

Departing Australia

Leaving my old life. Puke-scary.

Mexico

• La Paz, sun, sea, and a first encounter with Mexico.
• Mexico City: a complete shock to the system, and stepping into a darkroom for the first time.

The USA

• Making my first movie – Beyond. It proved somewhat popular.
• Learning to shoot landscapes in Texas with Jerod Foster at Texas Tech’s Junction Intercession.
• Washington DC: a city that completely blew me away for the 3 weeks I was there. Reconnecting with my old high school friend Carmen. Getting to know a damn fine bunch of street photographers.

Canada

Walking all over Montreal for a week with my very enterprising friend David, and finally, meeting Erin Wilson.

Denmark

• Copenhagen in the summer was a wonderful introduction to Europe, that mysterious continent I was convinced I’d never visit.
• Mostly because my best friend and I (apparently, to no one’s surprise but our own) discovered we were madly in love.

Singapore

• I lost my father. 2014 was for me, about that Dad-sized hole in the universe.
• My grasp of time went astray after this happened, picking up pieces while others crumbled in the background. Life went on as normal, but everything under the skin of reality became incomprehensible.
• For want of something to keep us occupied in the no man’s land of my childhood home, Flemming and I started Coffee and Magic.

 2014

Singapore

• I stayed in Singapore for 8 months after my father died. It’s the longest time I’ve been back since i left for Australia at 18. I stayed away for close to a decade after that, relieved to have escaped it, and fearing its entrapment if I returned. It was tough being back. It’s tough every time I come back. Of all the things I’ve had difficulty adjusting to, the place I was born and raised gives me the biggest ass kicking. Consistently.
• Then I tore my bloody ACL playing some one-on-one basketball. Two months after we watched my father breathe his last, my mother watched me led into the same operating theatre that didn’t do so well with him.
• But it was here that I finally got the nod to be an official Fujifilm X-Photographer.
• Flemming found out how earth-shatteringly loud a Cantonese family gathering can get.
• Then I made a movie for Fuji, for their new 16-55 lens. Go on, watch it (again).
• I also took some pictures of my battered X-Pro 1, the camera that manifested the hard knocks I took adjusting to life as a gypsy. That proved popular too, judging from the number of gear forum linkbacks the post has gotten.

Copenhagen

• Flemming gave me a bicycle. We took Georg(e) on a tour of the big smoke.
• Flemming and I co-hosted a Fujifilm Nordic event.
• I borrowed an X-E2 from Fuji Denmark for the summer festival season that I somehow, still have….

Italy

• Having sworn off shooting weddings, after 6 or 7 years of assisting at them, a destination wedding beckoned. And you know, it was pretty damn cool.

The USA

• September, October and November were 3 wonderful months, and 10,517 miles of driving in the USA.
• Along the way, we kicked off a quest to find an ancestor of Flemming’s, and found so much more.

2015…

… has so far, been all things Fuji. I made another movie, starring Flemming (again) and a highly anticipated new X-Series lens from Fujifilm.

Just in case you haven’t watched the movie (again), go watch it here.

Aptly, I spent 17 January itself in Penang, a place I’ve never been, exploring the World Heritage listed Georgetown. With my mother, and my boyfriend. Had you described this situation to me two years ago, I’d assume you were on crack.

I’ve experienced a fair few impossible things in the last two years. Each encounter would occupy a novel if I were to get started writing about them, so I won’t. If only because I can’t.

Viva la unpredictable journeys!