travel

Are We Happier When We’re Uncomfortable?

By Brad Beckstrom

I walked down a dark alley in a foreign city I’d never been to, walked up to a stranger and took this picture. Why in the world would I be wandering around a foreign city taking pictures of strangers. I do it because it’s uncomfortable. It’s a way to get out of my shell, meet people, and try to see new things.

Anything new, a major break from your normal routine, can be uncomfortable. It’s exactly this kind of discomfort that can make us happy, help us grow.

The Perfect Life?

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How to Talk Yourself Out of a Boat or RV Purchase, Every Time You Get That Itch.

05/19 by The Frug 2 Comments

It’s springtime here in Virginia which means my mind often wanders to adventure. We live close to the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. When the weather gets nice, I’m often thinking about how it would be cool to own a boat or an RV, get the family out, and have some fun. As a kid I remember some great times out on my parents’ boat on the Chesapeake Bay.

If you spend some time following blogs or YouTube channels, you’re bound to run across lots of folks having grand adventures sailing around the world or traveling cross country in RVs.

Weekend Warriors vs. Modern Nomads

There are generally two types of folks here: Those modern nomads who have chosen to live on a boat or in an RV full-time and those who are enthusiasts who make these large purchases for recreational purposes. Since the second group is vastly larger, that’s who I’m talking about today.

So, if you actually live full-time on a boat or in an RV you’ve already achieved a high degree of minimalism and don’t need these tips. Unless of course you’re thinking about buying a house to have a home base for your RV or boat, then please read on.

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The Big Audacious Quest.

05/15 by The Frug Leave a Comment

A Single Step

By Brad Beckstrom

I lost something 30 years ago and I just found it. In high school, I dreamed of creating great images, starting my own creative studio. Life moved on, the working world, a business, and later, a family became priorities. After college, I put down my camera creatively. That was 1985. Just this past year I picked it up again.

You see, I didn’t physically lose the camera. I’ve taken thousands of photos in the past 30 years. I’ve traveled, taking all of the requisite nicely composed tourist and family photos. I’ve loaded up Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and the like with iPhone photos.

In the mid 90s, I experimented with the first digital cameras, producing digital postcard events for clients. Images that included full-color logos and postcard backings. The personalized postcards were printed on-site using high-tech dye sublimation printers at events across North America and as far away as Singapore. They were phenomenally popular and drove our business for years. We printed and loaded literally tens of thousands of images onto the web using something called fetch, before photo sharing sites like flickr or SmugMug arrived. My interest in photography had paid off, but in the end, this was just high-volume, branded event photography.

How I began to scratch that long-lost creative itch.

One snowy Saturday I came across the award winning documentary “Finding Vivian Maier.” It’s about a longtime nanny who took over 100,000 photographs and hid the negatives in storage lockers that weren’t discovered until decades later.

She had shown her work to no one. [Read more…] about The Big Audacious Quest.