Roving-Eye Gallery update and newsletter #09 for December 2020 to July 2021

Hello to everyone and thank you to the new subscribers.. welcome aboard!

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I hope this newsletter finds you well!

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With the July update (49 images!) just uploaded head to What's New! | Roving-Eye.com and you can scroll back month by month for a catch up for previous months too!

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It’s been a much bigger gap, 7 months(!), since the last newsletter and was not intended to be that long!

Firstly December was wetter than normal (more on that later!) and so the number of images was way less than normal for a typical month and with Christmas looming I thought to hold off until January’s update to pick it up from there with a good batch of images.

 

Just a couple of days before the end of January I had a disastrous computer storage failure.. my “fail safe” redundant disc drives were both scrambled into a useless pile of junk file names and then my offsite backup, which was (supposedly) a comprehensive regularly updated backup proved it wasn’t when I needed it!

While I did not lose my main body of work (thankfully safe) it did put a huge dent in 6 months worth of working files and while not a fatal blow it was a big setback still.

 

Needless to say I’ve upgraded to an “industrial strength” grade of storage and backup.. Worth every cent to safeguard so much irreplaceable time and work.. I can’t go through that again!

 

As it turned out the weather also came back with a vengeance and we had unprecedented flooding in March which I was able to get unique footage of and gained international attention in short order and I was interviewed live on BBC, ABC and also shown on Ch 7, 9 and 10 and interviewed on radio too!

 

To see the main flood video head over to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO7_S54okbU To check out the interviews go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9MSwVYJ3mM&t=306s

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While you’re there you should go take a look at other videos such as whales and dolphins I have been able to get recently with the migration season in full swing!

 

Video is increasingly a format I’m creating now since it can do so many unique things and I aim to create an ongoing stream of subjects to post and hopefully worthy of your time to view! Just subscribe while you’re there to get notified of the latest videos to go up!

 

As I write this access to my flood video footage has been negotiated and will be used in a commercial ad for the SES! Nice to see a potential new channel open up! I will continue to work on becoming a better videographer as who knows where footage might end up in the future!

 

While the newsletter stream has been quiet in this gap it has been a super busy time to get a number of key items of equipment in and configured and ready to explore whole new frontiers!

 

I now have a range of camera equipment options for on the ground and in the air to make sure I make the most of whatever location I am in and now also have an adventure bike ready to take me deep into the deserts and a modified jetski designed for long range remote trips for coastlines and islands in my target list!

 

All this time, effort and expense is aimed to produce dividends by way of unique imagery and video from some special, sometimes remote, and sometimes risky, places that I want to reach and hopefully bring back special imagery for you to view and for all of us to enjoy and appreciate!

 

As of this writing one of the new items of equipment is delivering the goods already and that is the ability to add “blue lines” to Google maps so when you drag the little orange guy over the map to see such as street view you will also now start to see some of my content up there now too! I want to literally fill in the blank parts of the map.. this will expose millions of people to potentially view some of these places for the very first time!

To dream big you have to work on the small first.. and make sure you can do them! Here is a map link to a local feature called “Bago Bluff”.. just drag the guy over to display the blue line heading north through the centre of the map and drop and you can see my motorbike working it’s way down the trails! head to https://goo.gl/maps/jMJyDsdiebqMxteJ7

 

Now I have that confirmed as all working these uploads will be a regular thing for me.. I can hardly wait to create big slabs of such as “coast view” and I’ll be the one doing it where no-one else has!

 

While COVID has had a huge impact world wide I hope it is not too much longer before we can move a bit more freely regionally and interstate again.

 

In the meantime I have a big coastline to explore north and south of here and plenty more tests to complete yet before I can go truly remote anyway so at least no time is being lost and maximum productive use is made of it!

 

Things seem to be going really well lately, a nice run of orders just seems to be building and building and I have quoted for the install of images in the 3rd premium apartment building done in Port in the last year so Roving-Eye imagery is gracing the foyers around town and on permanent display in an increasing number of high traffic locations and also there are some individuals selecting multiple items for their own homes and personal spaces which is hugely gratifying and is easily the best outcome for me to know that the business can deliver imagery that makes a difference at a personal level like that!

 

Some other nice outcomes from the time and work put in is that National Parks tapped me on the shoulder recently and asked if I wanted to be one of their volunteer “citizen scientists” and help track the endangered east population of the Southern Right Whale using drones to get the required images.. Happy to help! Head over to Citizen scientists capture spectacular footage of endangered southern right whales off NSW coast | Whales | The Guardian to see what all that is about!

 

It hasn’t been an easy path at times and there have been other trying circumstances for sure.. but I never take anything for granted and it will be an ongoing effort to always see if can make the next image just that little bit better than the last and never drop that ball.. but to get here has been the result of so much personal support without which none of this would be possible so if I can repay that support with “making a difference” I think that’s awesome!

 

Don't forget.. all newsletters are available in an indexed archive so you can go and (re)read everything published to date at any time! .. just go to https://www.roving-eye.com/whatsnew-index

'Till next time.. take care!