It’s funny how things progress, isn’t it? I started Brendansadventures.com back in the day as a way to showcase my travel writing, which I had just started doing professionally. I had been published a couple times, and wanted a website that hosted just a couple of my articles as a bit of an online writing portfolio for potential clients. Then, after a couple months hosted on WordPress, I found out that I could make some money by putting google adsense into the sidebar so I switch to self-hosting. After 3 months, I had made about 12 dollars from Google, and I was thrilled about that!
5 years later now, and the blog is still going strong and the evolution has been so strange it hardly seems right. I went from a published travel writer who shot with a 5.1 mp “point-and-shoot” camera to someone who is known far more for his travel photography than the words he writes. But, I have to admit, the passion for writing has been waning of late. It’s been nearly void since I left Africa. Since I left Anne Murray.
I think it’s time for some changes.
Less Travel Stories
If you come to Brendansadventures.com for the travel stories, don’t think they’ll just disappear. However, in the past, I would write a travel story for nearly each and every destination. I would keep my life online in chronological order and hope that it would perhaps give people who couldn’t be travelling a bit of a feeling that they were. But to be honest, it’s become more and more difficult to write. I’m not sure where my inspiration went, but Africa seemed to put the rest of the world into a shadow for me. I suppose, when you spend 18 months in a life that feels like a movie, the things that happen afterwards all just have a way of feeling tame. Since Africa, I’ve often found myself writing apathetically, which is no way to wield a pen.
More Photography
So far on this site, I’ve focused much more on the “check my photos out” side of travel photography. Sure, I’ve done some things like the Photoshop Elements Tutorials on HDR and such, but I’ve been pretty bad at the teaching side of things.
Thus, I really want to help others find a way in travel photography. I want to be able to teach, to guide them to sources of income, and to really tell the story behind the images. Photography has long taken over as my passion, and I want to pursue that even more than I have been. I hope to also start leading some photography clinics and tours. Hopefully we can make that a reality at some point.
More Videos
As you probably know, I worked really hard on the video side of things this past year. My YouTube Channel, It’s my Life 365, however wasn’t nearly as popular as I had hoped. I grew a pretty nice subscribership, however, the views just aren’t there. Moreover, as I feel about my writing of late, I’ve been feeling apathetic to the videos I had been doing. It’s time for a change.
Though I’ll keep running It’s my Life 365, there will be far fewer videos than there are now.
The big change is a travel photography YouTube Channel that I’ve started on my own Google+ account. I’d really appreciate a subscription there:
The point of this channel, as the video describes will be to 1) teach some of the skills I’ve learned, 2) Show off some cool travel photography destinations, and 3) to show people how they can make a bit of money of there travel photography. I think it’ll be really fun, and the prospect of this channel has me really stoked to get started on it. I really think that video is the way things will go in the future, so I’ve really decided to make this a focus.
More Focus on my Guides
I think over the past couple years I’ve become a bit too focused on writing stories, and forget that people need guidance as much as they need inspiration. Spending time in China has taught me that there is still a major lack of really good information for travellers out there. There’s also a whole lot of garbage on the internet to wade through before you find the really smart information. I’ve been building my online travel guides for years now, but I’m going to focus a lot of my energy into that side of things from here on out.
Same Hardcore Travels!
Though the format and focus will change a bit, the way I travel certainly will not. I’m in China at the moment and I’m heading up to Mongolia, back to Europe, North America, and probably back to South America all withing the span of a year. I’m stoked for the travels to come. I’m also hoping that re-focusing the blog, and my workload will re-energize my inspiration. The world is just as amazing as it’s always been, but I’ve been beating the same dead horse for 5 years now, it’s time to switch things up a bit.