Photography - My Passion

by Lauren

Before I begin I just wanted to show off Nicole's new banner for our blog! Isn't she a fantastic artist?

Anyway, last night the three of us had a conference call with Kristin, our RTN mentor, and we learned all about how to use our video camera. It's much bigger and more professional-looking than any video camera I have ever touched, so I'm a little scared of it, but also so excited to be a videographer. Photography has been a passion of mine for many years now, and while I tend to work with still images, not video, I think this will be an excellent opportunity to use what I know, learn something new, and broaden my horizons on visual imagery (ok, I admit I reworded that sentence 2 or 3 times to make it sound smart).

Basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can't wait to make this documentary. Last night, I could hardly fall asleep because I was lying in bed thinking of all the cool shots we could get on our trip. The last time I video-taped a trip was when I went tornado chasing, but then I wasn't paying much attention to style and composition, mostly just to running around in the wind trying not to get blown over.

Speaking of photography, one of our interviews is with Chris Johns, the editor-in-chief of National Geographic! The magazine sent us his photo book, Wild at Heart, as well as a few magazines that he has contributed to. My dream job would be to do exactly what he has done. I spend almost every day walking around with a huge camera around my neck (so yes, I look like a tourist everywhere I go) because I'm always afraid that I'm going to miss something... and I would! I think I take anywhere between 30 and 500 pictures in a day (more if I'm on vacation) because everywhere I turn there's something new I want to capture forever.

One recent example of my inability to put my camera away was on a vacation I took to Mexico with my (very indulgent) boyfriend and some friends. While our friends were lounging at the beach sipping margaritas, I insisted that we (my boyfriend and I) venture deep into the jungle surrounding the Cobá ruins because I wanted to photograph some of the archaeology sites (places where new ruins are still being excavated). We ended up getting stalked three miles into the jungle by a crazy Mayan man with a whip who I think wanted to kill us.... Instead of killing us, though, he got his picture taken as we made our narrow escape. If that's not dedication to my passion for photography, I don't know what is!

Anyway, one thing that has always been important to me in all the travel photography I've done is that I like my pictures to tell a story. I think that's a lot of what we're going to be doing on this trip. Not only are we interviewing people about their stories, but we're telling our own story along the way.

I hope that for those of you following our blog before we leave, you're getting an idea of who we are and what we're hoping to accomplish on our upcoming trip. And on that note... only two weeks left to wait!

How It All Began...

by Nicole

The Roadtrip Nation dream began months ago when the weather was chilly and snow covered the ground. It was February and an idea was beginning to take shape. I didn't know about Roadtrip Nation back then, but I did know one thing - that I was graduating in four months and had no idea what I would be doing after graduation. In an effort to calm my fears, I began to share them with my fellow-seniors in a weekly column that I wrote for my school's newspaper. My writing for the paper was part of an intricate plan that I was developing in my mind. It involved questions, a road trip, and interviews with experts in specific fields that my questions related to. I came up with an idea of creating a documentary of sorts over Chinese food with my dad one night. I created a list of questions that I was dealing with as a soon-to-be graduate and that I felt other soon-to-be graduates might also have. I then put these questions into categories like "Career", "Social", and "Health". Each category was then assigned a list of "experts" who I felt had the answers to the questions that I was so desperately seeking answers to.

That initial napkin brainstorming session gave me the kick-start that I needed to e-mail the experts that I had thought of with my dad, present to them my idea, and then ask them if they might be free for an interview. Out of the many e-mails that I mailed out, a few came back - all negative responses. I was discouraged and that discouragement combined with the approaching dark cloud that my college likes to call "finals" jolted my focus away from my idea and onto the reality that graduation was closer than ever. I created a blog about my idea complete with a small list of people that I hoped to interview. Although I had somewhat given up on the idea of a documentary-style road trip, I would soon learn that the idea had not given up on me.

In the coming weeks finals came and went. I marched to "The Pomp and Circumstance" and moved out of college for the last time. I was set to accept my dream turned fantasy as another example of self-fulfilled prophecy - that I was this flighty girl with big dreams and great ambitions, but with no execution to make of it a reality. Then things started to change.

I can remember sitting in front of my computer, browsing and carousing (not really) on Facebook like I had so many times before. Then, in Facebook's sometime creepy fashion, a very appropriate, very direct ad showed up with the statement, "22 Year Old Female? Have a Documentary Made About Your Life!" I had never clicked an advertisement link on Facebook before seeing that ad, but did I ever jump on the click wagon with that one! The site explained that I would have to make a short video describing my video idea and submit it to the site. Old habits die hard, and as a practiced procrastinator I, of course, waiting until the night before the entry was due to make my video. I didn't like how it turned out and decided against submitting it in order to save myself the embarrassment of certain failure. I again filed away my dream, this time giving up on it even more than before.

For whatever reason, I had a change of heart a few weeks following my decision to not go on with my dream. It suddenly dawned on me that I was the one who was making my self-fulfilled prophecy a self-fulfilled reality. I prayed about the idea and let go of it, but decided that giving up on it was not the answer. I began researching road trips and came across a group of people who had done something similar to what I was looking to do. A group of college students set out on a journey to hit the road and to explore different career options by interviewing people people about their career paths. They called their group Pursue the Passion and were able to get corporate sponsorship to support their entire trip. I really liked their idea and was inspired by the interviews that they conducted, but didn't just want to experience my dream vicariously through other people. I decided to do more research on the idea of receiving corporate funding for my trip. I began e-mailing companies that I felt targeted people my age. I had a bit of deja vu when hearing back about my corporate inquiries, because like my original interview inquiries, they all came back negative!

Now that I had the knowledge that other people my age were able to do something similar to what I hoped to do, I was more on fire than ever. I continued to do research on corporate documentary sponsorship and even started a Facebook group for the cause titled "What Now?" In it I discussed the road trip documentary idea, corporate sponsorship, and my general feelings of unease about my recent transition into "the real world". The people in the group agreed that they also were feeling uneasy and lost. Hearing from them was a great reminder that I wasn't alone in how I was feeling. Shortly after creating this group I came across something during one of my feverish and frenzied google searches called "Roadtrip Nation". I had simply typed in something along the lines of "road trip interview" and BAM! The first result was Roadtrip Nation. How had I not heard about this sooner?! Roadtrip Nation was a manifestation of everything that my dream was. Visiting the Roadtrip Nation was something like I imagine meeting the man of my dreams might be like. I had all these ideas in my mind about what I wanted my trip to be like - everything from it being documentary-style to being able to find funding for it - and here it was, a real and tangible thing. I let out a number of screams as I browsed through the site's pages. Then I learned about Roadtrip Nation's (RTN for short) indie road trips and how I could apply to go on one ANY time of the year. Perfect! I started my online application that night.

It took me a few weeks to finish the application. In the mean time I started asking friends if they might like to come along. People ran hot and cold on interest level, but eventually things panned out and what was left were my friends Lauren and Sarah and myself. We got an e-mail from our amazing and insightful mentor, Kristin, about two weeks ago saying that we had been accepted to partake in our very own indie road trip. Amazing! We're all so excited and we will be documenting our trip and everything leading up to it here on this blog.

Enjoy!