Car Conversion and iPad Changes
Having spent several years travelling around the UK doing landscape photography, I’ve always dreamt of converting a van as my base on the road. Whilst this is still an ongoing ambition, the current mileage I do with sports photography per year makes owning a van a little impractical. After making the decision to go for an estate when changing cars last year, it wasn’t long before I set about making it into a basic base when on the road. From fitting a foam mattress, a combination of jackery power and basic jet boil cooking facilities. I feel I have now started to create a simple, practical method to sleep on location and hopefully save myself a few extra hours in bed for those sunrise missions.
The last three cars I have owned have all been Fords and when looking to change I didn’t look far from what I had owned previously. Deciding to go with the Focus Estate. I was very impressed with the flatbed functionally on the rear seats and it wasn’t long before I realised the car created enough space work with. My first purchase was three piece folding memory foam mattress. It’s width fit perfectly when dropping two thirds of the rears seats, enabling me to keep the other seat upright for eating or working at. With the mattress folded out and the front passenger seat pushed forward, being 5ft 11 I can lie completely flat with legs stretched out. From there with help from my dad, who was in the process of his own van conversion at the time. I was given a expandable curtain rail that locks into place using the front seat grab railings This creates a perfect way of cutting out light and isolating the front from the rear of the car.
With spending a large amount of time on the road and hiking for landscapes, weight is always high on my priority list. With this in mind I made the decision over the last year to pick up an iPad Pro after hearing such amazing things about them. I have slowly began to develop a workflow with a combination of the machines speed along with optimised Lightroom and Photoshop. Having been so impressed with the process involved in working on images and the results I have started to achieve. The iPad has now become the only way I edit my imagery on the road. The hands on feel when using the Apple Pencil really gives a vibe that drawing gave you as a child. That you are creating a bit of art that I never really felt when using the MacBook.
