Little did I
know that my third try at marriage would bring out
my passion for telling
stories through travel, words, and yes, even pictures.
Telling Our Stories
After we
married, Bill bought an RV, and we went full-time RVing for a total of eight
years. He had the foresight to buy not
just a huge GPS but also a Nikon DSLR. On this my third try, I was given the tools with which to give life to previously unspoken
passions. He became my travel buddy; he painstakingly edited my blog posts; and he gifted me the cameras with which to take pictures. As someone said: “Once you learn to care,
you can record images in your mind and film. There is no difference.”
Winning Photo Contests
After
completing five years of RVing when we turned 65 and 70, our bodies told us to
find more convenient ways of traveling. We turned to snowbirding in Phoenix,
Arizona during winter, traveling the world and visiting our children the rest
of the year.
Resort
living became our lifestyle between trips. Four pools, six hot tubs, two saunas,
ten tennis and ten pickleball courts, two golf courses, a shuffleboard court, a
softball field, a billiards hall, many hobby and crafts rooms, a dance studio, a
computer lab, many meeting rooms, three clubhouses, three ballrooms, a Pub
& Grill. etc. made sure of that. In the fourth year, we sold our RV and
bought a home for a base. Part of the draw was some 50 clubs. One of them, the
Viewpoint Photography Club, became my favorite.
In my very first
year of joining the annual Viewpoint Photo Show, I won Best of Show, People’s
Choice, and Judges’ Choice in the Bronze Division with my photo of the Blue
Doors of Tunisia. Beginner’s luck! I was immediately bumped into the Silver
Division and the competition became stiffer. Still, in the following years, I kept
on winning more. Seeing that my passion had grown, my husband upgraded my tools
and gifted me with a Sony mirrorless digital camera to replace the bulky Nikon
DSLR of 8 years.
Making Stories Deeper
Beginning in
2019, we took comfort travel up another notch and made Mexico our second home
through our El Cid Vacations Club timeshare. From January 1 to March 31, when
it turns “cold” in the desert, we stay at one of their resorts either
in Mazatlan or Cancun. We stay in our Arizona base during spring and fall. In the hot summer months, we use our two other timeshares and visit our children in their homes, all cooler places.
But I had to
give up my membership in the Photography Club which operated during the winter
season when all the snowbirds were in Viewpoint. I turned to photography basics
to tell better stories, not to win contests. I resorted to natural lighting, good composition, and evocative shots. As I polished my writing into
travel essays, my photos also began to tell deeper stories, the inner journeys.
When Even Photographs Will Be Inadequate
Now we have
reached that phase when we travel less. We are traveling more from our armchairs.
Just in time, Bill has shifted me to the best camera phone on the market, the
S21 Ultra. He said it’s time to capture life, especially family life, with more
convenience.
And I won’t mind
if these Ansell Adams words come true: “When words become unclear, I shall
focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with
silence.” I thank Bill for my retirement life of travel, writing, and pictures.
