I halted any new photos at the end of 2019 in order to focus all free time to prepare for the launch of my very first Kickstarter at the end of February in 2020. What followed was a whirlwind of contacting book manufacturers, figuring out shipping costs, designing the campaign page, and trying to reduce costs across the board to make the project as appealing to potential backers as possible. They say hindsight is 20/20 and, looking back, months after the Kickstarter was cancelled (since it was obvious funding was not in sight), I am actually glad it did not fund.

There were grand plans to have a minimum of 13 new photo shoots, funded by the Kickstarter, to include in the book. These photos involved traveling around the southeast of the U.S., hiring actors, making costumes, and building props. In the middle of March 2020, mere weeks after the cancellation of the Kickstarter, the globe was rocked with the pandemic; I don’t need to elaborate on this, everyone has their own tales, but with all that is going on, completion of these photos would have been impossible with the timeline I was working with; there were at least 6 that would need to have been postponed 1.5-2 years. The timing was not right.

Almost immediately following the failure of the campaign, I retreated from social media after taking a cue from a quote Austin Kleon shared in his book, ‘Keep Going,’ the third in his excellent series (beginning with ‘Steal Like an Artist’)

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes—including you.” Anne Lamott

It was a mixture of disappointment, exhaustion, burnout, and the need to re-center myself that lead me away.

The book will come to life. When it is time, I will be ready.

It has been nearly a year since the campaign and I have finally begun work on my first new photo since October 2019 for this Board Game Photos project, featuring a personal favorite of mine — Race for the Galaxy. In a separate project from this one, I joined forces with Todd, from Imagine All the Meeple, and Kevin, from Old Man Games, to start a new board game photography series, Victory Point Labs. Each episode we shoot photos of the same game, compare shots, and share feedback.