Our First Interview: Kevin Van Aelst

by Nicole

On our trip we will be conducting interviews all over the country in all sorts of formats. Since What Now Wanderers are fairly tech-savvy (not to mention a tad bit blog crazy), it seems appropriate that our first "official" interview would be conducted via the internet.

During college, I was introduced to the world of photography by a friendly and fun professor by the name of Kevin Van Aelst. I enjoyed his introduction to photography class so much that the following year I enrolled in his digital photography class. I have spoken to a handful of other students who have had Professor Van Aelst and we all agree that his classes are great. I think that one of the things that make his classes so great his passion for what he is teaching - an asset that not every professor at my college has. It was this passion that inspired me to ask Professor Van Aelst to tell his story.

Check out what he had to say!
1.) Have you always wanted to be a photographer?

Not at all. In High School, I had nothing to do with art and was most interested in math and science, and I always thought this was what I would do with my life. I went into college as a Biology major, and graduated with a degree in Social Psychology. It wasn't until the very final stretch of college that I'd even begun to consider taking art seriously as a career path.

2.) How did you get into photography?

I bought my first SLR camera on a whim. It was the summer after my freshman year at college, and I thought taking pictures would be a fun hobby to take up. The next school year, I signed up for a membership in the community darkroom in the basement of the student union. I spent the next couple years as one of those kids who always had a camera around their neck, and spending what free time I could find in that darkroom. I studied more and more about art and took some contemporary art history classes and I learned that art could be simple. Art could be smart, rather than emotional; art could be clever rather than sensitive; and art could be fun, rather than serious. This made me want to learn as much as I could, and try new and different things through photography (not just constant hunting for interesting scenes to shoot--something I love doing, but was never very good at). After I graduated from Cornell, I moved home for a year and tried to figure out what the heck to do with my life. One of my thesis advisors told me that I shouldn't go to grad school for anything unless I couldn't possibly imagine my life without it. So I decided to take a serious shot at it and to get my Masters of Fine Art.

3.) Were there any challenges along the road to pursuing a career in photography?

Millions. Art itself is easy, like speaking, or thinking; it's simply a way of communicating. Good Art is a different matter all together. Translating a concept, notion, vision, sensation, or idea in a clear, non-verbal way is a terrifying task. What is it you want to communicate? And how to go about that? And does it even matter? and how does it fit in with the on-going dialogue of the human experience that basically is what Contemporary Art is all about. To even put oneself out there as an "artist" is, again, terrifying.

There are many many ways to make a living with photography. There are portrait/event/wedding photographers (something I've never had any interest in), there is commercial and product photography--which pays great, but isn't very fulfilling, and even within the realm of Fine Art there are countless genres of photography. The luckiest job for any artist to have is one that keeps them involved in their field, and affords them the time and energy to devote to their craft. Teaching has been that great turn of luck for myself, and along with the magazine work I've done in the last year or so, I'm lucky enough to have the time and money to keep producing, exhibiting, and selling work.

4.) What advice do you have for someone who is unsure of what they want to do?

Don't let anyone tell you that you need to have it all figured out by the time you finish college. Of all the people I know who love what they are doing with their lives, very few are on a trajectory that could have predicted when they graduated. Take any opportunity you have to learn more about yourself, and never be afraid to fail. One of my favorite pieces of advice is: It's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than to be half way up one that you don't.

Kevin Van Aelst has an awesome website. Check it out here!

Celebrity

by Nicole
It's nice to be recognized. To have someone say, "Hey! You're so-and-so" or, "Why, didn't you do that?!". Recently, recognition happened to me. Okay, okay... You're probably thinking that it was some stranger on the street screaming out, "Oh my word! Aren't you Nicole?!". As cool as that would be, that wasn't the case. Actually, the person who recognized me was my mailman. This would be totally normal since he has been my mailman my entire life and often recognizes me and say hello, but it was the fact that he recognized me and referred to the What Now Wanderers article in the Greenwich Time that got me excited. He knows a lot of things about a lot of people via mail, but I still was surprised at his degree of knowledge about our trip. He commented on the grant, the route, and inquired about the car. He asked if we were planning to take my '91 Dodge Shadow. I said no and that if we did do that, we might not make it past Lancaster. All in all it was a nice experience to have our trip recognized! It's a good feeling to know that people are learning about what we are going to be doing and that they are excited enough about it to bring it up in conversation!

Service- My Passion

by Sarah

For the last few days I have been losing sleep trying to figure out what to post on our team blog as my passion. I think I'm a pretty passionate person- not in the sense of ... intimate or in bed kind passion... but meaning that I am just enthusiastic, or passionate, about so many things. I would make a great salesperson for any product that I love, such as coffee or a country I've traveled to. If you know me, you are well aware of my obsession with kids- this could mean kids I know or kids I just pass by on the street and fawn over. Another passion of mine is traveling. Ever since I stepped foot off the ground here in the USA , I became in love with adventure & travel. Since I left the country initially, my passion with traveling has extended to long term living abroad. During the Fall of my Sophomore year, I questioned whether the major I entered college with was right for me. I began my education at Messiah College seeking a degree in Elementary Education. It was during the first semester of being a Resident Assistant to Freshmen girls in my floor I discovered that, though I love children, my passion is more in helping people (or little people) on a deeper, more counseling like, level. Ever since I was little, my parents instilled in me the value caring for others. My personal values in my faith as well as the ones I had grown up with all equated with the field of social work. This whole long story is getting somewhere- don't stop reading... so given the strengths that God has given me (encouragement, mercy, compassion) along with my passions: children, traveling, relationships, and social work, I could say that God has given me a passion of service. In every one of my interests, I have incorporated service into it- traveling on missions trips and studying abroad working at the orphanage, working at Kids in Crisis ( a therapeutic crisis shelter for kids), or whatever it may be, it always seems to be wrapped around the idea of serving others. At Messiah, we learned about being servant leaders- a very interesting concept and one which I hope to someday accurately emulate.

Looking back, it is evident how God has had a hand in my life through the roads he has guided me on- helping on Meals-on-Wheels with my dad as a young child, the activities I took interest in in high school, working at KIC starting in high school, the college I chose, missions trips, studying abroad in Lithuania and working at the orphanage, choosing social work as my major. It all seems so obvious how they are all connected when I look back at the span of my life. I have been called to serve- whether it be my friends, neighbors (next door or across the world), or family. Seeing that my passion is in serving others, I know that I will find the right opportunities (and the right opportunities will find me) to live out this passion on the road trip. It will be fascinating to see how it all plays out over time (as it always does...)

Creativity - My Passion

by Nicole

Lauren had the great idea to have each of us road-trippers highlight our passions in a personal blog post. I was at first very intrigued by the idea and commended Lauren right away on her commitment to the blog and our quest for self discovery. Then, it hit me. I don't know what my passion is! I have actually started a blog detailing my journey towards finding my life's passion in which I say "Yes" to everything that I have an interest in. After a work days worth of consideration, I have decided on a passion to talk about: Creativity. It may not be a specific field, hobby or career path, but I can say boldly that I am passionate about being creative. In fact, I swoon over the idea of being creative and bask in any chance that I have to express myself in this way.

As far back as I can remember, I have been attracted to anything that makes me think "out of the box" (the theme song to Playhouse Disney's "Out of the Box" is playing in my head as I write this). My earliest memory of being creative (actually a story that my mom tells me that I only vaguely remember) was when I was between three and four years old. My mom woke up one morning and came to see if I was awake yet. When she looked in my room I wasn't there. She, of course, panicked and began to search for me around the house. When she couldn't find me there she opened the front door and there I was, digging a hole in the front yard (the outline of the hole actually still remains in the yard, though we've tried to fill it in numerous times). When my mom asked me what I was doing I just said, "a hole!". I can't tell you now why I decided that it would be a good idea to go outside alone early in the morning to dig a hole, but I do know that I must have had a reason to do so at the time.

Even today I find myself doing things that seem somewhat strange or crazy because I feel like "I have to" in order to better understand myself. A recent example would be my decision to cover my bicycle with Peanuts comic strips. I had been wanting to decorate my bike for a long time and finally gave into doing so the week after I graduated from college (weird thing for a recent grad to do, I know...). I just felt like I "had" to decorate my bike or else I felt like I'd be denying myself creatively or something.

I may not know what it is that I want to do with my passion for creativity, but I do know that I feel more like myself when I am given the freedom to be creative than I do at any other time. I'm not even limited my use of the term "creativity" to the world of art. Given any situation where there is freedom to brainstorm and consider the possibilities in a creative way, I flourish and truly enjoy myself!

Today I overheard some of my co-workers at my internship talking about seeing something creatively. One co-worker asked the other about what she thought about something (sorry that's so vague, but I was overhearing the conversation and don't know what it was that they were talking about) and the other co-worker said, "I don't know... I don't have that creative eye." It was then that I had one of those realizations that hit home that are based on things that are heard time and time again: that we are all gifted differently. We're all gifted differently. Something that I can remember thinking as far back as elementary school when I envied Lauren for getting 100% on her Word Masters test (we all know that she has a gift with words... just read her blog!) or middle school when I first learned that Sarah could play the cello... something that I can definitely not do! For whatever reason, hearing my co-worker say this made me feel empowered. I have a gift and a passion: creativity. How could I not use it? Choosing to not use it would only deny myself and the world. It would be like Spiderman choosing not to use his Spidey Senses or Cher choosing not to use her hair-flipping abilities!

Heres to following your passion!

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!

My Excitement Level Has Reached an All-Time High

by Sarah

So I have this habit as of recent which involves tearing out pages of magazines that I find of interest to me while waiting in waiting rooms.  Just the other day, I was waiting outside the doctors' office and found an awesome activity to do with the kids I work with at KIC.  It's for a scrapbook made of paper bags.  You punch holes in the paper bags an tie them together with string going horizontally, decorate the outsides with designs & pictures, and put artifacts in the inside of the bags.  Another article I ripped out of a magazine was one that talked about beautiful fall cities to visit in the US.  Lucky for us 3 out of the 4 were on the route that we were already planning. If you know me at all, I am in love with the fall so this is very exciting for me!  This weekend Nicole & I went apple picking.  This fun day included frolicking in fields, taking ridiculous pictures, and baking (too many) apple pies.  We wished Lauren could have joined us (she was busy going to an awesome concert), but don't worry, we'll have plenty of bonding time before and during the trip.  

One thing that's semi stressing me out about the trip is mapping out the route of our trip.  It seems that we might not have enough time to fit in everything, see everyone we want to see, interview everyone we want to interview, and so on (the albino squirrel park may have to be nixed)- sorry guys...  I feel fully responsible for this given that I have to be back to work on the 31st of October.  I wish I had a more lax schedule and was able to take off as much time as I want, but unfortunately this is not the case.  Hopefully this week we'll be meeting to discuss the route.  

On another note, I'm starting to read "The Alchemist" now.  It has been paid forward from Lauren to Nicole to me.  I think it'll be great that we all have read a common book before we go.   Especially since it's so relevant to our road trip.  Previously, I was reading "Three Cups of Tea."  I loved this book in the beginning, but I can't seem to stay intrigued come the end of the book.  I'll try and finish it- I don't like to start something and not finish it. So we'll see.  That's all for now.  More to come soon!

It's the Final Countdown....

by Lauren

I just added a Road Trip Countdown to the sidebar of our blog, now that we have an official start-date of October 22nd.

I'm sure I'm going to get made fun of for posting this, but how can I resist?