Always On, Always Connected, Always Searching, Always Distracted

Summary

Always On, Always Connected, Always Searching, Always Distracted June 10, 2025 ( Prev / Next ) I started writing this post on my iPhone during an overnight stay on Prince Edward Island (PEI) sometime in 2015. One stop on a short road trip in Canada. The photo I uploaded to Instagram at the time confirms that was indeed exactly a decade ago. Since then I’ve completed a few long-term projects, visited numerous portfolio reviews, been to several countries, photographic retreats, galleries, exhibitions, book festivals, talks. All in pursuit of understanding what I’m doing with the photography I am taking. What I’m trying to say is that the scope of the post crept over those ten years. It’s all a bit of a mess. Canada I was driving from Mont Joli to Charlottetown along New Brunswick Route 11, South, when my mind started to wander. The road is very long and poorly maintained, meaning there are many potholes to avoid. If you position your car just a little to the right you can miss most of the holes; the big ones, they still get you. When the road is so long and often so straight, and you can’t find a radio station that interests you, your mind does indeed start to wander. I was thinking about my reasons for being here, beyond the Formula 1 Grand Prix I had just experienced. My final destination after a brief stop on PEI would be Halifax, Nova Scotia, to meet up with Mike. I had met Mike three years earlier at a guitar seminar in Northern France. The guitar seminar was at the home of a great guitarist you may have heard of, perhaps, but that doesn’t matter for now. The important thing is that Mike, being the stereotypically friendly Canadian, had suggested that if ever I were in his part of the world then I should stop by; so that’s exactly what I was planning to do, even though the scale for “part of the world” is slightly exaggerated for a North American. What my thoughts eventually fixated on was the book I had read on the flight over: “Exploring Calvin and Hobbes: An E...