There comes a time in every man’s life when it’s time to tip his hat, mount his horse and ride off into the sunset. In case that wasn’t apparent from the lack of posts in the past year or two… that time has come for me.

Eight years of adventuring as a news photographer took me on some wild adventures, many of which were documented in this blog, but as the years wore on, it kinda stopped being fun.

Many factors contributed to this… First, being in the same place for so many years got old. This is even true for a job where you’re out on a different assignment every day. Change can be a good thing, and when you feel like you’ve hit the roof in your current position, it can be tough to submit to the fact that you could be stuck in the same place for the rest of your career. I needed a change, even if it meant hanging up my journalist hat (the old timey one with the “press” tab on it).

Along with that, the business had changed dramatically. I’m not going to criticize or critique how things are done at one or any station, but it is interesting to examine what the position was when I signed up, and what the position was when I left.

Back in ’07, I came to town as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed photog with only a year-and-change of experience in a small market. The chance to play with the big boys was too good to pass up, so I moved to town as a part-time morning show photog. My primary duty was to take a live truck and do random live shots of the weather for a 2 hour morning show. In other words, I took the truck to a park at 4 AM, pointed the camera at a tree, took a 10 minute nap, pointed the camera at a pond, took a 10 minute nap, pointed the camera at a duck, went home. I wouldn’t say that I was living any sort of dream (and I was barely able to dream in the 4 hours I was able to sleep on that shift), but I was building a career, so I was happy and excited.

This was around the time that I started the blog. Living alone in a new city can be boring and lonely (as many journalists bouncing between markets have probably learned), so I turned to the Internet for a creative outlet. Documenting my adventures became a habit that helped add purpose to my daily life. Heading out in the field offered inspiration for a new entry into the Photocalypse archive. Big or small, there was always something to muse about, and I loved it.

There were a lot of great adventures to be had, and I learned a lot about the ways of the world. But after several years, I began to get a little beaten up. Back problems took me off the streets for a while, late hours took away the chance for a social life, and seeing the horrible things that people do  to each other became hard to ignore.

Along with that, my job had changed dramatically. No longer was I shooting a story a day with a reporter. It became two or three stories, with no time for breaks, artistic effort or… well, even the facts became trivial at times. Days became exhausting, frustrating, and depressing. Where did those carefree days go where we were able to goof off and have fun while creating journalistic excellence?

They were long gone, and they weren’t coming back. I was performing what was once three jobs: photographer, reporter, and even satellite truck operator. It was beating the hell outta me, and it showed no sign of letting up. I was slowly becoming old, angry and bitter… much like the elder photogs at the station. Was that what I was doomed to become? What happened to that wacky kid that took so much pride in his work?

Sure, every once in a while I still got to do something that would justify all the rough days… like this amazing moment from the 2012 World Series…

… and an Emmy win for a story that I tracked down and fought to produce…

… but even those didn’t inspire me to log an entry in the blog. The great days didn’t come often enough to outweigh the rough ones, and I eventually came to the realization that this job was changing me. It wasn’t what I wanted to spend my life doing.

So I finally found an opportunity to move on and try to find that creative, fun loving kid that once dreamed of being a filmmaker. I have no delusions of moving to Hollywood and scoring big… I just want to track down that muse that once inspired me to spend time creating silly home videos like The Adventure of Jasper and Goldbug…

… and Richter vs. Pumpkin Richter…

Remember that guy? Yeah, he was fun. Hopefully he’s still in there somewhere.

So I’ve moved on to a job in creative services at another station. It’s a new challenge that requires new skills and challenges, which is exactly what I needed. I certainly miss the adventures… there really is something to be said about being out of the office every day… but any time there’s a snow storm, a car accident, a child that’s been shot, a brutal rape, a kidnapping, a drive-by, or a murder-suicide, I can’t help but be a little thankful that I no longer have to be the one repressing memories from it.

That being said, here’s a gleeful look back at the 6 years of adventuring that I had at my previous job. Enjoy!

Hopefully I will have something fun to post from time to time in the future, but I don’t expect anybody to actually be checking up on it. It will really just be for me to archive my adventures and appreciate how far I’ve come. If anybody’s still reading… go find a cat doing something funny or whatever is cool this week. There ain’t gonna be none of that here.