25 years of (my) travel and photography

Part five: 2020-2024

What do you say about the year 2020? I think we all know the story. The pandemic struck and the world shut down. Travel came to a standstill.

In our household were also trying to settle my wife’s uncle’s estate (he’d been an art and antiques dealer in Arizona and Colorado) so the only travel I was doing at that time was to drive truckloads of his collection from Arizona back to Kansas where we could inventory it and prepare it for auction. Or, driving to Colorado where we had to keep a small gallery open for a set period of time each year to maintain its zoning for resale. The first of these trips — one of the Phoenix runs — was fairly soon after the shutdowns began to be lifted and it was extremely difficult to coordinate because different parts of the US were opening up at different times and you never knew for certain where you could even get gas or find an open drive through. Let alone finding places that could accommodate a 26 foot truck.

2020

There were several of those road trips to Arizona, but I never took a camera along. They were trips with a different purpose and the last thing I was thinking about was making images. A few phone photos of U-Haul trucks being loaded is about all I have. When it came to keeping the Colorado shop open, I did spend a little more time there. It would take a few days to set the shop up, during which time we’d stay in the rustic attached cabin. During that time I’d fire off a few early morning shots of the view of Rocky Mountain National Park from the porch, or of the hummingbirds that flocked to the feeders. Still, I doubt I shot a hundred photos all year, if you don’t count the studio photography I was doing to document the estate’s collection. I did, however, learn a lot about studio lighting on that project, which changed the course of much of my photography during this lull in travel shooting.

Countries visited in 2020:

Domestic travel only

Gear at that time:

Nikon D850

2021

In 2021 we made exactly one non-estate-related excursion and that was to attend the Svensk Hyllningsfest festival in Lindsborg, Kansas. It was still feeling odd to be out and around people but it also felt like the beginning of some normality returning. Not much, but there was hope.

Countries visited in 2021:

Domestic travel only

Gear at that time:

Nikon D850

2022

Finally at the end of 2022, an opportunity presented itself to return to Spain. In some ways it still felt like early days and masks were still required on the planes, but the world was opening up and it was an interesting opportunity to see how Europe — Spain in particular — was coping as well. I had a press trip in Basque Country but this time my wife came along and spent time on her own in Madrid while I was on the press tour. Afterward we rented a car in Madrid and drove back north to explore Spain’s Atlantic coast. The pandemic had changed a lot of hotel and restaurant policies, plus it was November and we were off-season, but it was a very quiet trip. In some places we were nearly the only guests in the hotel. In others it felt more like business as usual.

Countries visited in 2022:

Spain

Gear at that time:

Nikon D810
Nikon D850

2023

Back in 2019 I had been involved in the planning of an SATW Freelance Council meeting that would be held in Extremadura, Spain. When the pandemic hit, that meeting was delayed. Finally it came together for the fall of 2023. I got to participate in a Photo Quest competition and was able to return to a lot of my favorite spots as well as discover many new places in Extremadura. I never have a bad time in Spain.

Countries visited in 2023:

Spain

Gear at that time:

Nikon D810
Nikon D850

2024

2024 was another sleepy year in terms of international travel but I’m hopeful that I’ll be getting back into the rhythm of travel again in 2025. In fact, I flew out on December 31, 2024 to begin my first trip of 2025 in Valencia, Spain. Hopefully that’s just the start of what’s in store for ’25. Much prep work has been underway including getting a new passport, getting trusted traveler status, and switching up a lot of the gear I travel with. There is some energy and momentum going and I’m truly looking forward to getting back to travel. Life is short and there is so much more I want to see and photograph.

Countries visited in 2024:

Domestic travel only.

Gear at that time:

Nikon D810
Nikon D850

Up next: Back to your regularly scheduled posts!

Looking back at 25 years of (my) travel and photography

Part one: 2000-2004
Part two: 2005-2009
Part three: 2010-2014
Part four: 2015-2019
Part five: 2020-2024