Day 0 - Non-photographic intro

Every once in a while, you need to hit the reset button on your life. Sometimes that simply means one afternoon to yourself to breathe and do something you find personally refreshing, like curl in the corner in read, take a walk, pray, or go running. On a rare occasion, it can mean relocating to a foreign country for three months – or, more exactly, 99 days. The short story is this:

As a photographer moonlighting as a library technician (or visa versa, depending how you look at it), I have had the opportunity to work scanning and photographing rare materials in a library for the past four years. Just as my time to leave drew near, the opportunity to work on a project in Belgium came up. Spend three months in Belgium, digitize some music scores, have amazing fodder for photographs on evenings and weekends, and experience a foreign culture first-hand for the first time?

Yes, please.

So I vacated my apartment, packed up one checked bag and one incredibly heavy carry-on (two cameras, accessories, and a laptop can do that), and am currently preparing this blog post as I fly over the Atlantic Ocean on my first ever excursion off of US soil. With 99 days between flights, the potential to capture great images in inevitable, and so the idea of this blog was born. Normally your visit to this site will be rewarded with interesting photographs and a lot less chatter, but on Day 0 my cameras are packed so tightly away for travel that getting one out is near impossible. Bleave me, I tried, and disturbed a few people's sleep in the process. **Note to self – pack the camera on top for the return trip.

And once we touch down, the party starts.

Ready? Go.