Absence of Social

I doubt anyone working as a freelance content generator, will disagree that 2020 has been right up there with the most challenging years...ever. One of the only positives that I can personally glean from Covid 19, is the opportunity to reset that it provided, and with that I decided to try and take less notice of the noise being generated on social media...perhaps a little ironic seeing as I will share this post to my Facebook work page?

That said, I have never been under any illusion that Facebook-Instagram et al. can be powerful tools for liaising with potential work contacts. Though, with two elections of interest in 2020, I figured that I could do without the algorithm manipulation employed by the social media giants, and with that avoid witnessing friends and associates disappearing down the various conspiracy theory rabbit holes.

So, I stepped back from updating my social media feeds and looked at other ways to positively spend the extra time I had on my hands...as freelance television contracts pretty much dried up overnight.

Since July, I have been donning a set of chef whites and developing my culinary skills...I enrolled in the NZ Certificate of Cookery at the local Polytechnic. It has been an enlightening experience going back to school, and learning how to function efficiently in a commercial kitchen. As part of our training, we are obliged to take photos and encouraged to share images on social media, and to be honest I have been doing a really poor job of this as for some reason, I saw the opportunity to up-skill in an alternative industry as a way to step away from the cameras for a bit.

However, as enjoyable as it is for this old dog to learn a few new tricks, the rest away from story-telling has actually re-ignited my fervour for the visual image. This is really fortunate, as the successful pandemic recovery in New Zealand has generated a wealth of new filming opportunities that I am currently getting busy with. I have also invested in some new camera equipment to cover all types of content. If you need something shot, scripted or even a series of still photos, hit me up as I'm keen to engage in as many local projects as I can. In the meantime, here are a few very average photos of dishes I have prepared recently. If nothing else, I should be a handy addition to any location filming expedition as a: Shooting-Producer-Director-Chef