My life is going through one of those periods where I feel out of rhythm all the time. I’ve been travelling for work a lot – and while the shine hasn’t quite worn off on the idea that someone likes my photography so much they’ll fly me around instead of finding a perfectly suitable west coast photographer, I’ve got to confess I’m tired.

My equipment weighs about 35 lbs, and when all your projects are in a small locale you walk everywhere. When the weather is good you might find yourself (as I did) shooting for 15 hours with only the slimmest of breaks for things like food. Because my work is weather dependant, sunny skies often put me in a state of mild panic when I’m working, feeling the pressure to get every shot in and make it perfect before the weather gods move on.

Silly things start happening towards the end of such a day, like me splitting the crotch of my jeans wide open while trying to shimmy up a lamp post for a shot (luckily it was in the parking lot of a mall, so I repaired the problem post haste), my camera crapping out on me, and the discovery that I now talk to myself in public as I caught the fact that I was giving the camera a pep talk while petting it as though it were a dog and begging it to let me finish the shoot. I believe I even dangled the carrot of a sensor cleaning afterwards.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore my job. I love to travel, I love to shoot, and I love the amount of knitting time that travel affords. I finished another colour affection shawl almost exclusively on planes and in airports, 2 weeks start to finish (of course, I can’t show you photos because I don’t have a camera). That’s pretty awesome, but it doesn’t take away the fact that I’m now sort of haggard looking, haven’t been to karate regularly, am feeling the stress of my camera being in the shop and have become an insomniac.

So what do I do at 3 am? I spin. And even though my brain feels like spaghetti, I swear it’s getting better.