2023 - Time For A Refresh

It's been a little while since I've done one of these, but as I try to get back into the habit of writing and blogging again, I figure that this is more then an opportune time to do it!!

WORK

For just shy of 10 months this year, I was working at carconnect as a Tech Support Engineer.
In September, my role was made redundant, and I left the company after an 11 month tenure. I faced plenty of ups and downs whilst in the job, but enjoyed plenty of the professional challenges and new found knowledge that I gained working there including:

• Salesforce administration
• Microsoft Office 365 administration
• Atlassian Suite Management
  • Jira Service Management
  • Confluence

FAMILY

My two nephews Lucas and Micah are 7 and 4 respectively. We try to see them with my sister and brother-in-law once a week for family dinner.
Insert Family Photo Here

PHOTOGRAPHY - SAM LAW

By and large, most of my time and effort has been invested into my photography.
One of the biggest achievements of the year was shooting for World Time Attack Challenge as one of their 3 official photographers. It was a long 3¹/₂ 18 hour days, but we came away with some really great work, solidified and established some relationships.

Travel was on the cards for photos this year:

• 5 Rounds of Hi-Tec Drifting Allstars Series (2 x Winton (VIC), 2 x Calder Park (VIC), Queensland Raceway (QLD))
• Adelaide Motorsport Festival (for DriftingSA)
• Bathurst 6 Hour
• Bathurst International
• LZ World Tour

I've had the pleasure of working with Autohaus Hamilton for all of their Cars & Coffee throughout the year, along with North Shore Sporting Car Club for Collecting Cars AutoBrunch and was also one of 2 official shooters for SubiNats. And I shot a wedding!!

About halfway through the year I purchased a new camera; a FujiFilm GFX100S which is a "Medium Format" [Large Format] camera boasting an effective 102 MP. It's been a great learning curve to adjust to using it; as it's quite a bit slower than using my Nikon D850, but has taught me to slow down and focus on creating shots.

GENERAL LIFE

I got along to 2 Semi-Permanent Fesitvals this year - the normal one in Sydney, and then to a second session in Melbourne where they partnered with Now or Never to bring us NEVER©PERMANENT

Gig wise, there were a few, but seeing Flight Facilities play Sydney Town Hall for their Decades Tour was nothing short of magical!!! Harbourlife was an interesting one this year. For the first time in 25 years of heading to gigs, I was searched for the possession of drugs, which was just a stupid inconvenience, but after that little ordeal, seeing Braxe & Falcon blitz the dancefloor with decades of amazing tunes that they've had a hand in was amazing!!

Moro The Stagea finally landed herself some new wheels (after 8 years of ownership)!! She is sporting some 20" R35 GTR Rims (1st Gen), with some BC Racing Gold coilovers and looking tough!!! I've been casually chatting to some people about her next evolution as well, but that seems like a distant dream.

TRAKT

TRAKT Year In Review I watch waaay too much TV & Movies..... I think my Plex and Trakt screwed up through the year, so this is probably not comprehensive either.....

Apple Music

Apple Music Replay I think Apple Music would be my subscription of choice. I have such a long standing history with it, that it hasn't made sense to jump ship to Spotify, so here's my Replay 2023. I do, however, also use Soundcloud, Beatport, Bandcamp, & Mixcloud.

NEXT YEAR

Who knows what the future brings??
I'd love to get back into some fitness, probably running.
I have plans to self publish a book or 2 - coffee table books of photos.
I'm looking at the possibility of shooting a round or 2 of D1NZ, along with some other photographic travels.

I need to get myself back into the work force again.
I'll be continuing to write and publish here semi-regularly, along with refreshing/importing a back catalogue of posts dating back to 2005, and making some improvements (comments, maybe a launchpad and recommendations etc).

Happy New Year!!!