500.

I started this blog 3 years ago. When I switched The Pixelated Image blog from Typepad to WordPress I thinned it out a bit, so some of the original posts, and the fluff in between, got deleted. So I’m not sure when I originally began, but the first surviving post is dated Sept 13, 2005.

I started this blog to journal a change in my life, the change from full-time comedian to full-time photographer. Many of those fluffy personal posts got trashed in the move, but the journey’s still been the same. Looking back I wish I’d kept those – they might shock some of you who assume I’ve been shooting professionally since the moment I could cash a paycheque. But just like many of you it’s been a meandering journey to get where I am, and the road ahead looks no straighter or necessarily easier.

I wanted to be a National Geo shooter, wanted to do this for a living. That was when I was 16. Then I decided I’d probably lose the passion if I made it my profession, and at 18 I ran off to start 5 years of pastoral training at a theology college in the frozen tundra of the Canadian prairies. Those were some cold, flat, years. Then I graduated and while my colleagues all ran off to change the world, I began a 12 year career in comedy, changing the world with laughter on a stage rather than sermons from a pulpit. Oh, the zigs and zags of life.

And then one day I went to Haiti as both a comic and a photographer – go figure. I went down wearing two hats, came back more comfortable in one and switched careers yet again. In December 2006, a couple high profile assignments behind me, I stepped off the stage for the last time. Leaving something you know and love for something in unchartered waters is scary, but folks you have one life and you’re never so happy as when you’re doing what you’re made to do.

Thanks for being part of the journey, for the encouragements along the way. We’re building a wonderful community here and I’m deeply grateful for you all. I have dreams aplenty yet to strive for in this career, and I know you do too, so stick around – it’ll be more fun if we do it together.