“Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.”

I have been lucky enough to be able to travel pretty extensively over the last few years. But this last trip really hit me pretty hard. There I was traveling down a dirty road in the middle of Tahiti to see the largest water falls on the island. In my backpack, between my camera, gear, lenses, ipod, cell phone, and laptop I had about 10,000 dollars worth of, lets face it, non life essentials. One of the houses, if you dare call it that as it was nothing more than plywood on cement bricks off the ground with a tarp covering it, had a family of nine living in it. It was a empathetic photographers dream, a cornucopia of heart wrenching pictures all over the place. I didn’t snap one. My attention drifted to the kids (of which there were 7 living in this house) playing soccer with a ball woven together from strips of palm fronds. Going through my pictures from that day I realized I didn’t even end up taking pictures of the waterfalls.

One of the benefits, which I came to realize is also the worst part of being a photographer, is that we literally rape (the classical use of the word btw [link]) people, cultures, landscapes, moments, even emotions. What do we give back? What do we do for these people? There are the rare photographers who actually do give back like [link] But why aren't there more of us like him?

I realize now that this was the moment my life had its epiphany and I needed to do something about it. I decided to fuse a passion, a dream, an ability, and the will to make it all happen in due time. I have decided to join the Navy and signed up for a surgical trauma program. My intent is to learn as much medicine as my government will teach me for free, and actually I get paid the whole time. When I graduate I will have a large enough savings to get my boat that have dreamed of, and I will sail the world taking pictures BUT I will also target those areas that get the littlest and thus have the greatest need for healthcare. I will be able to give back to all of which I have taken from. I have already set the wheels in motion to start a tax shelter for people to donate items that I will need. Total time for everything will be five years.

The cons of course will include, time away from my daughter, thanks to our wonderful fucking ignoramus of a leader time spent in Iraq or Afghanistan, I will be shot at, it will be rough both mentally and physically, and of course the limited ability to take pictures.

But in the end…what I gain and will be able to do with my life…will be, as the stupid commercials go, priceless.

But as with all good things, or in my case mediocre things, must come to an end, or in my case a pretty long temporary hiatus. This has been an interesting community for me for a good amount of time. I have received and hopefully given so much inspiration I have little or no clue where to even begin. Suffice to say though…if you inspired me you were told about it. Not to worry though…if you didn’t hear from me I probably learned from you what not to do