Saturated

Since my passion for photography and especially wildlife photography and moreover filmmaking was reignited I have spent countless hours watching Youtube videos, reading reviews, making lists of gear I can’t afford and wondering how I could get the cash together to buy this or that thing. At the same time my timing couldn’t have been better as the world of A.I. marches on, an unnecessary and ridiculous “war” took place and these two events have driven prices of just about everything up and up and up. The “war” has ceased, and then it hasn’t and then it has, but the prices as always have remained high. Of course when you read the press they say the price of fuel has decreased significantly since the “war” started, but it hasn’t really because it should never have risen to the price it did.

Why am I writing this political commentary instead of talking about Nature and Wildlife, well bear with me, there is a connection, or at least from where I’m standing (or currently laying in bed as I write).

I have the possibility to borrow a camera soon, one that I have been looking at for some time. I am bombarded by the Youtube algorithm daily with reviews and opinions about this camera, mostly by Americans who have access to large quantities of cash it would seem and also an abundance of Wildlife if they’re willing to travel, also young Europeans who seem to get given cameras, lenses, computers, software, subscriptions etc etc. at the drop of a hat.
Here in little old New Zealand the concept of sponsoring someone trying to make “content” or get ahead is absurd as tits on a bull. However as I said I am going to borrow a camera soon from a company that seems to want to help me, it remains to be seen if this is an elaborate scam to relieve me of the required $1000 refundable deposit that I will have to pay them to borrow the camera, I sincerely hope not because I can ill afford to lose a grand right now.
But with this camera or any other camera I’m filming with comes the necessity for more hard drive space, more GPU power, and bigger power unit for the computer to run the aforementioned GPU and so on and so on.
A 12TB NAS drive now costs NZ$1200 on Amazon, 6 months ago they were $600 or less, so if you need 5 for a NAS that’s $6000! This begs the question who is actually buying all this stuff, or more importantly how are they paying for it. Of course if you’re a working professional and not just some wannabe wildlife filmmaker then you are offsetting these costs (hopefully) as a business expense, but nonetheless you need the business in the first place, and here in NZ that’s almost non-existent right now.

All of this makes me wonder where we are heading and that collective apathy and dare I say exhaustive depression that seems prevalent in society right now.
Sure YouTube, Instagram and to some extent Faceplant shows you the magical, wonderfully Sunny lives of all these people and gives you something to aspire to, or something to push you firmly over the edge, but the truth is most people are really struggling and I honestly think creativity is taking a massive hit at the hands of greed.

When I was working at Weta I had a good income and a relatively secure job. I got into the mindset of “well I can afford that because I can cover the cost with a few weeks earnings” and ironically I have bumped into quite a few people over the years and all of them want to leave, have had enough, looking for a Plan-B and yet they all stay…. because of the money.
But for me staying wasn’t an option and so here I am trying to lead that life and cover the costs of what is now very expensive equipment but with 1/3 or less of the wage.

I recently spoke to a local wholesaler (distributor) for Sigma lenses. As some of you know I have a secondhand Sigma 60-600 mm which I love, but it’s the old one and so I thought as I have the Pyxis coming it would be great to try out the newer native L mount version, which by all accounts has a better macro function too. The guy basically said to me “How long have yo lived here?” Over 20 years I replied, “Well then you know that we are at the bottom of the globe and that getting things here isn’t easy, and therefore we just don’t carry the stock, or have the needs to help people like you, of which there might be only one in the whole of New Zealand”! Cue the sound of a balloon deflating….. Of course he’s right, we are a further 3000 km further South than Sunny, vibrant and seemingly more creative Australia and if we are to believe his mantra we also have zero desire in developing the Country for anything other than Sheep, Beef and maybe a bit of Tourism. So yeah maybe I should just shutup and move right? But I don’t really want to although I may end up having to if my personal life continues to deteriorate as it is. But even if I were overseas I still can’t quite get my head around how people are surviving and able to actually go out and film wildlife with cameras, lenses and the associated gear needed to store, edit and deliver the films.

I’m intrigued to hear what others think, bear in mind that renting something in this Country is not only difficult as they don’t have the inventory, but is also not cheap.