Austin goes to Chicago! 🏙

There are so many weeks in my life where I’m not inspired by the work I am doing….This week was different!

We took a trip to Chicago on Wednesday last week to capture assets for Warroad’s new athletic collection.

As some of the new initiatives at Touchstone, we are trying to make each photoshoot bigger than the last. A big focus on this is capturing video alongside photography. This past week, we had 14 new products to shoot for our hockey brand Warroad. Instead of the normal studio shots in our Mason office, I headed to Chicago with our digital marketer to capture some lifestyle photos and videos. We worked with an awesome photographer (Alex) and four different models. It was super fun to be able to focus on a set of models and then switch whenever we got done with the shots. It was a quick trip that barely lasted more than 24 hours.

Things like this light a fire in me because it is completely different from my day to day work at Touchstone. The key to keeping me on my toes is to always try new things. Mixing everything up allows you to appreciate the normal work when you come back to it. One of my worst impulses is to just create things that have nothing to do with the work I actually need to get done. Trips like this make me feel like I’m back in college just working on a variety of projects.

I am so behind.

That’s it, I seriously have so much work to do and I have been struggling to accomplish it all. I have a very bad tendency to take on a ton of side projects and then consume all of my free time. 

Crafting the perfect work life balance is something that I’m trying to tackle before the end of this year. I love creating, but doing it all day and then on the side leads me to a quick burnout. So my goal is to be transparent and share my hierarchy of projects; currently, I have two wedding videos that take precedent over all the others. 

When it comes to solving problems or even just projects, figuring out which ones are the most important is key. I have tons of little rocks that take up most of my days, but focusing on chipping away at the large boulders help keep the stress from building up too high.

Yeah. I said it. But hear me out.

Marvel movies are the B tier movies that I watch to fill wasted time. I hate their generic stories and predicable outcomes. That’s why going into watching “Loki” I was super skeptical. I expected another super hero tv show with some forced humor throughout….what I got was anything but that.

Loki is a superhero/villain show at the surface, but if you look beyond that, there is so much more. The premise of the show is that Loki messed with the flow of time so he must be punished by the TVA (Time Variance Authority). What ensues is a journey through time to uncover the biggest mystery of the universe; who is in control. At times, it feels like you’re watching an episode of Doctor Who mixed with Mind Hunter. I usually don’t recommend Marvel movies/tv shows to everyone, but this one is a very unique case! 

Thanks for taking the time to read all the way through to the end! I would love if you had any suggestions for good movies or tv shows to just send them to me via social media.