Cycling Changed My Photography Focus

Last summer, Deborah and I started riding bikes again. Well, for me, it was more of a return, while for Deborah, it was her first time back in the saddle after a long time. I wasn’t entirely sure where this would lead us, but it reminded both of us to spend more time outdoors, take in the sights at a slower pace, and appreciate that, often, life simply looks better from a bike.

For most of last year, I focused my free time on photography, trying to stay current with a hobby that evolves rapidly. Keeping up with something so dependent on gear is a challenge every photographer faces, requiring a balance between what you need, what you have, what you want, and what you can achieve with the tools at hand. As I’ve done a few times before, I went all in—only to come to a realization about myself as a photographer, that I enjoy photography, as a hobby. That led to a dramatic shift—this time toward biking. I kept my smallest, lightest Nikon (the Nikon Z50) and traded the rest of my gear for a bike. So far, it’s probably one of the best moves I’ve made in photography in a long time.

Since I enjoy working on websites and creating content (which happens to be my job as well), I decided to launch a new site dedicated to our travel adventures and bike rides. This site, with my namesake, will remain my personal space for photography-related posts, which will probably have a biking twist from now on. The new site, Shanty Travelers, will document our biking journeys. We also started a YouTube channel to accompany the website, where I’ll be posting bike and travel-related videos whenever I can.

Over the past six months, I’ve been building out the site with all of our travel-related material, so it already has a solid library of posts. But when it comes to bike-related content, we’re just getting started.

I’ve attempted projects like this before, with limited success. However, my motivations have changed. I care much less about clicks, views, or Google rankings now. Instead, I’m focused on using these two sites to separate topics and, once again, document life.

So, for anyone thinking that blogs are dead—maybe they are, in some ways. But this one isn’t. As I’ve done for years online, I’ve tried to create a site I would want to read through. There are no ads on this site, I’m not trying to sell anything (except maybe my photography book), I’m just continuing to document life.