Last January I wrote four short pieces for an English study paper here in Japan. The English editor was an easy going person to work with. He basically thought what I wrote was great and wanted to do something bigger in the spring, and so for those reasons I thought it was very fortunate for me to have the chance to work with him.
In the spring we did a two-page spread about mountains in Japan. I was paid 50,000 yen (about $500) for the piece, a nice bit of money for what took me little time to prepare as it was all in my head or saved as photos in my computer. The editor said he wanted to do another two-page spread in the fall. I was most encouraged as it would mean more exposure for my photography and writing and another 50,000 yen.
In the spring I also was getting paid by my stock agency for other recent photo sales. In May I took home over 400,000 yen in combined payments from work, the stock agency and the study paper. That was the most money I had ever earned in a month and I now had a balance in my photography account that was not supplied with funds from my pay as a teacher. For once it seemed photography was paying for itself, at least for a little while. My next three hikes were funded almost entirely from the money earned from photography and writing. I didn’t know how long it would last but I was pleased.
My plans for the fall included three more hikes. I am working on a project that requires photos from certain mountains in the Japan Alps and also certain seasonal images. The project is almost complete and though I have actually five more places to visit, three more will be sufficient for the project to be considered complete.
From September 21 to 23 I had three days off. I picked a target area and planned a trek across part of a mountain range. Then I set aside two other weekend dates on the calendar for the other two trips. My photography account was low now and there were only enough funds for one trip; however, I was counting on the money for the autumn piece in the paper to pay for the other two trips. I emailed the editor to ask about when I should start writing and what photos he was thinking to use. His reply two days later delivered the bad news:
The paper was not doing well financially. He was leaving his position in October and he would no longer be able to sway the editor-in-chief with his input. Basically, the piece was off.
It was of course disappointing; though it was not the first time I had received such news. In the past I had magazine editors say they would use a photo or a portfolio of mine in an upcoming issue only to have them return my photos one or two issues before with a message stating that the magazine would cease publication. This happened with Pacific Northwest magazine, Earth magazine and Camera Canada magazine. Also my photos had twice been selected for book projects which were later cancelled and the photos returned to me. So, I was no stranger to the “Yes, yes,” and then “Sorry, but no,” storyline that comes with the struggle to get one’s work published.
What hurts is that I will no be getting another 50,000 yen and that means I can only afford one more outing and not three. I can cancel visiting one area without it hurting my project. But the remaining two are important. The first is a visit to a mountain in the southern part of the Central Alps. This range of mountains is not big but almost everyone, including myself, visits the northern region because there is a cable car going up to the base of a famous peak. Few people, however, make the trek along the ridge to the peaks at the southern end of the range. I feel it is important to include that area in my project.
The other target is a cirque in the North Alps that is famous for the autumn colours of the rowan trees, which turn incredibly vivid shades of red and orange around October 10th. I really feel it is important to get those colours on film as well. Faced with having to choose only one destination, I decided to try to visit the Central Alps in October and hopefully find some of the same autumn splendour there while shooting that mountain in the southern region. Not going out for the three days meant spending a rare three-day weekend at home, not a bad thing really but still it's not often I get three days off.
It’s a bit frustrating really. Actually, we have money in our account but we are keeping that as an emergency fund. We spent a lot of money this year on MiniHot’s birth and the medical care system has slowly been giving us most of the money back again. But if I spend it for myself it doesn’t seem right. That is our family money. For my photography I need to either scrape a little of my earnings as an English teacher or try to earn more by submitting to calendars, magazines, stock agencies and publishers. Certainly my resume earned a number of new notches this year which should help. And I have several projects on the go that I can work on over the next three days. But hiking, trekking and climbing require fairly regular excursions in order to keep the old body in shape. If my last hike for the year will be in October and then I will not be able to go again until maybe March I know my physical condition will be less than optimal.What hurts the most though is that I can’t make the most out of the autumn season this year. One hike and maybe a visit to the local river in November will be all I can manage. I’ll have to make the most of it.
Additional: We had two days of heavy rain and only today was sunny. Maybe it was good I didn't go to the mountains anyway.
