Extended vacations

So there I am sat in the doc's surgery this morning waiting to ber called in about this embarrassing private condition (very sore throat) and I pick up the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007 booklet. Stunning stuff in there, it's really fantastic. The winner was of a bull elephant taking a bath at a watering hole in Botswana. Taken by a UK photographer, Ben Osborne, who said:

'I staked out this watering hole in Botswana's Chobe National Park for three weeks, taking pictures....'

Another one, a picture of a flying fish in the south Pacific, by another Brit, who said 'One afternoon, as we were sailing between Vanuatu and Fiji, dozens of large flying fish appeared off the bow of our boat...' And it was obvious that she's talking about her private yacht.

I want to know how people manage to go off to exotic places for so long. Do these people have jobs? I can't leave my practice for more than a few days without having to arrange for another solicitor to come in and supervise, and if I was employed I'd at best get 2 weeks off at a time. So how do peeps get months away? And, how do they afford it?

I'd love to disappear for the English winter as I find it so miserable and depressing.

Thoughts???

[G]

The african guy was probably out there on charity work and decided to go bush man for a few week and survive off the wilderness, free and easy if you know how.

The boat women probably has an extremely rich husband.....or is just extremely rich and can afford to pay people to run her companies and still make plenty of money herself.

Or may be a novelest who has made a killing with one book so now travels whilst writing....theres loads of ways really, i would love to know how to get in on it myself.

I've gone AWOL for a good 4-5months in the not so distant past.

In my situation though, the rest of the family had commitments, so we couldn't go anywhere.

I had enough cash in reserve, and I was sick to the back teeth by my employer, so I left & that was that. Damn that was a good ride home!

I'd love to go off around the world, and I'd be able to do it quite easily, if it weren't for the fact I have other people in the immediate family to think about.

Still planning to take a couple of days in France next year on the bike, hopefully all the family coming around North America in an RV sometime next year too. Then hoping to take a couple of weeks in Europe the year after, again, on the bike.

It's easy really, just takes the courage to get out & do it. Oh, and enough financial backing, obviously.

i get 13 weeks paid holiday a year. finished up for summer on 25th june and was not due to go back to work til 14th august. but then my wages are so mince I cant afford to go anywhere for longer than 2 hours

Also, in the situation of the photographers, it IS their job. They could either be out there on commission, or be based out there to do their work...

In my very early days I just about barely scraped an existance as a freelance photographer. And when I say scraped, I do mean scraped, such that when I gave up and got a job at £3 an hour it was a notable pay rise. It pains me to admit it but the only way I could scrape a living was by ambulance chasing - load up on a bike (all hail the Mighty Kwak AR125!), ride into town, wait for an ambulance or a fire engine, and chase it. My one front page was in the local rag and was after the fire engine I was chasing crashed into an old people's home (was nothing to do with me, honest!)

I'm a good ten years plus out of date on how to make money snapping these days, I'm sure Sam will have a better idea. In my day the route was generally take thousands and thousands of photos, lodge them with an agency (who would then wittle down your two thousand masterpieces to 500 or so) and then sell them for all sorts, calendars, magazine articles, books etc. Providing a steady but definitely low income.

Edit: Oh, also worth mentioning, again this is ten-fifteen years old and I think everyone in the industry has accepted the digital revolution now, but back then there weren't that many agencies that took 35mm shots for anything other than news/sport, all the arty landscapy shots and the like were expected to be shot on medium format (Hasselblad's & Mamiyas etc).

Edit 2: Hang on a second - Shell are sponsoring wildlife photographer of the year now? Isn't that like the Harold Shipman Award for Health Care?

It's not too hard if you're prepared to sacrifice a few things for it.

My mother has just bought a huge yacht and is going to live on it, subsidised by the collected rent from the house. It means a lot of life changes, including opening your home to complete strangers but she'll never see another winter ever again! Her life will be basic in material goods, but richer in experience then any man could buy.

Originally Posted by gettin2dizzy

My mother has just bought a huge yacht and is going to live on it, subsidised by the collected rent from the house. It means a lot of life changes, including opening your home to complete strangers but she'll never see another winter ever again! Her life will be basic in material goods, but richer in experience then any man could buy.

Does she need a toy boy

Originally Posted by Ed

Does she need a toy boy

She's already got one

[northwind]

My work's quite good for short career breaks and unpaid holidays- they've basically realised that it's easier than having to replace people. But not everywhere's so good with it.