Susan S has taken up the offer / challenge / opportunity! to post a guest blog.

Susan lives in Washington State, in the US, and she's a very keen photographer.

She is also famous on this blog, and the PGS forum, for coordinating the KIT THE NUN program. Already she's been instrumental in sourcing a huge amount of gear for Sister Clare, for the Camino Portuguese Tour next year.

As well, she has liaised with all those other very kind people who have donated gear and clothing etc, and in some instances cash, so that Sister has all she needs next April.

Susan just told me that a very generous man, Tom Turtle, has just donated a sports watch, and an iPod Touch so that Sister can be connected to the Internet during her walk! And Susan herself has donated an iPod Nano!

I am bowled over by their kindness.

So here is Susan's guest post –

Playing Peregrina

I won’t be walking my Camino until either spring or fall of 2014. It will be 1/3 to ½ the Camino Frances. Meanwhile I walk vicariously with the PGS family as you walk your 2013 Caminos.

I’m currently training by working down a list of local walks that as I go down the list, grow in length and/or in elevation gain. Eventually I’d like to work up to walking to our favorite taco truck 25km away, followed the next day by a 22km round trip from my house trip up Badger Mountain with its elevation gain carrying my full pack.​

A few years back I felt “constipated” with my photography. I was not happy with any of my photos, not happy with the subject matter, suffering from photo cabin fever.

I mentioned it to a Boston friend of mine who said try being a tourist in your own town. It will open your eyes to what I have been missing and taking for granted. (easy for him to say living in Boston) So I tried it and it worked!

Now I play peregrina with my camera on my training walks and imagine I’m in northern Spain rather than south central Washington. Which is easy since I live in a high steppe channeled scabland area with few towns and hills rising out of ancient riverbeds.

I walk and stop by little latte stands and sit a few minutes with a small cup of coffee.

I notice decorative ironwork on farm fences that I’ve driven by for 28 years unseen. I notice that the bridge over the Yakima is over 20 years old and think has it been that long that the road into town has been 4 lane instead of 2?? I see that one of the farms has both alpaca and llama!

On a clear day I stand at the edge of my yard and I can see the Blue Mountains 100km away and calculate that the hour drive would be a 4-5 day walk following the route that Lewis and Clark traveled over 200 years ago.

When you slowed down to smell the roses and train for your Camino by walking your locale, what things did you notice that you otherwise passed by unnoticed?

Today I drive to Boggabilla – about 650 kms.

I'm looking forward to the drive – up through central New South Wales. The route the truckers use when they're moving freight from state to state.

On trips like this I always take my camera – my Nikon, plus kit – but since the Camino I've developed a real antipathy towards the big heavy thing.

I used to love my camera with an unhealthy ardour, but now the sparkle has faded from our relationship. I'm starting to hanker for something a little more… svelte.

The university where I'm an Adjunct Professor wants me to hold a Master Class on Tuesday, for their 2nd and 3rd year film school students. How to have a career in the Film Industry. It should be interesting. I usually learn a lot doing these Master Classes.

Then I have several days of “pitching” sessions – where I have to judge students pitches – the process of trying to convince me, and a couple of other film professionals on the panel, to finance the short film they want to make.

Again I learn a hell of a lot from these kids during these sessions. I find that teaching keeps me in touch with the way young people are thinking – and what's important to them. Teaching keeps me young.

I'm taking my pilgrim principles on this trip – traveling light, and eschewing fancy digs for something a little more “earthy.” So it's dinner tonight at the Wobbly Boot Hotel, Boggabilla. I'm looking forward to it!

So, anyone want to do a guest blog? If so, please send it to me on: billpgsblog@gmail.com.

It would be great to get some fresh new perspectives up here. No specific topic. You know the kind of stuff we discuss here…

Really, when you think about it, it makes no sense.

You might have met the person only once or twice, and briefly at that – yet months later with each of you now at other ends of the world, you're still swapping emails.

And you know that should you ever lob into that country, that town or city where that person lives, you'll be greeted like a life-long friend – perhaps given a bed and told you can stay for however long you wish.

I'm not talking romantic attachments here. This is not as simple or as primitive as sexual attraction. This is genuine friendship. Yet you might hardly know that person.

What is it about the Camino that engenders this depth of feeling?

I can name half a dozen people from my pilgrimage that I would now regard as dear friends. And I largely kept to myself. I was by no means gregarious,

If I put a clock to it, if I calculated the actual time I spent with them, it might only be a few hours. But that brief time forged an immutable bond that I know will last years – in some instances perhaps even our lifetimes.

What's at work here?

Why?

In my book, I make a couple of references to the bonds of mateship that are formed during wartime. Soldiers in a trench about to go over the top, not knowing if in the next few minutes they'll be alive or dead.

The intensity of a shared experience. A life altering experience. Something that others who haven't been through what you've been through, will never fully comprehend.

But with the Camino, I think there's something more. Again in my book I talk about soul contracts between pilgrims. I'm talking about relationships that go back lifetimes.

There are people you meet who you have an immediate affinity with – who you feel you've known for ages.

Perhaps you have!

The Camino is a spiritual path. A life journey. A place where you are stripped back and reassembled again. A place where people come into your life for a purpose.

Are there people you've met only briefly on the Camino who are now dear friends? If so, why?

Once again Steve McCurry leaves me humbled…

Six months on now from walking the Camino, there are various changes which have become permanent. Some small, some major.

Small ones:

1. I still can’t handle the sound of my phone ringing. I kept it on silent all through the Camino, and I still keep it on silent.
2. I don’t put the alarm on at night. If someone’s going to break into the house and steal something, then they probably need it. (I do however lock the doors – and I am yet to put up a neon sign out front saying Steal here! )
3. I don’t buy things. Unnecessary things. I used to. The house is full of it.
4. At the end of November Jennifer and I are having a huge garage sale – first time ever. We’re unburdening ourselves. We don’t need so much stuff. 
5. I’m frugal.

Big ones:

1. I have more patience.
2. I’m more accepting.
3. I’m more grateful – and thankful.
4. My sister and I have become genuine friends. (This is MASSIVE)
5. I’m gentler.

What made me think about this right now is: I’m making travel plans for this trip Jennifer and I will be doing in a few weeks. We’re going to London for business, then we’re flying down to Porto to do a full “scout” of the Portuguese Camino tour I’ll be leading next April.

We’ll follow the Camino all the way through to Santiago – by car, but with a bit of walking. I want to lock in hotels, find some nice restaurants, and familiarise myself with the route.

Just now I went to book accommodation in London. When I go to London on business I usually stay in a place in Soho called Hazlits. It’s a cool little boutique hotel, but it’s expensive. I didn’t want to stay there this time. So I’ve found a cute pub in Wandsworth, out of Central London, and it’s about a quarter the cost of Hazlits. It’s perfect.

I’ll get the train in for the business meetings – and Jennifer and I can have pub food of an evening. I would never have considered doing this prior to the Camino.

This Sunday we drive up to Queensland for a week. (over 1,000kms) I have work to do for my university. Overnight we’ll stay at the Wobbly Boot Hotel, Boggabilla.

In previous years when we’ve done this drive to Brisbane, we’ve stayed in decent motels in major towns, not pubs in tiny little places like Boggabilla. But post Camino, everything is different. My attitude to these things has completely changed.

These may not sound like monumental changes, but they are indicators of a major shift in my thinking. I look at the world differently now.

I’m going to use the blog shamelessly today for self promotion!

So what’s different, you might ask??  😀

Britta – a regular on this blog – just posted a fantastic review on both Kindle and iBooks for my book, The Way, My Way.

For those of you who got a free copy and haven’t posted a review yet, can I gently give you a nudge? All these reviews are really helpful.

Here’s Britta’s fantastic review:

At the moment I’m writing a treatment for a movie on the sex trade of young children in South East Asia.

I’ve optioned a book on the subject, and I have interest from a financier out of Paris whom I’ve worked with before. I’d pitched him the story last year at Cannes, and he responded positively.

The film will be in the Jason Bourne movie tradition… an action thriller, but underneath it all it’s a very powerful statement about the evil of this horrendous trade in young lives.

So the financier wants an 8 page outline.

Writing an 8 page outline though is incredibly hard, because you have to work out the entire movie, structure it in three acts, and then condense it down into 8 pages.

Not only that but you have to create the main characters, work out their dramatic and narrative objectives and obstacles – in other words, you literally have to see the finished movie in your head, with all the major characters.

Even though it’s only 8 pages, a good outline can take months.

So I’ve been toiling away on this, and yesterday I hit a blockage. I was into the third act, and I didn’t know how to finish the movie.

There is an elemental truth in movies – it doesn’t matter how you start; the audience will only remember the ending. They will judge the film by its ending.

Anyway, I was stuck. Big time. I’d written my characters into a situation which was impossible to get out of – and I needed to wrap everything up. But I didn’t know how.

So I did what I’ve done in the past – a method that’s worked for me successfully before.

Just as I was about to go to sleep last night, I did a little meditation in which I laid out all the issues that needed to be resolved. I gave my PGS a bedtime shopping list of the things in the outline that I needed to work out.

And this morning, when I woke up, it was all there. I knew exactly how to end the movie. MY PGS overnight had figured it all out for me, and it was clear as a bell as soon as I opened my eyes.

I went straight downstairs to my computer and finished the outline in half an hour. I’d let the night, and my PGS, do its work…

This is a subject of endless fascination for me.

As technology changes, my attitude to cameras changes considerably.

I’ve just read an article written by an accomplished National Geographic photographer. He took the new iPhone to Scotland, and shot 4000 pics in 4 days. The shots are terrific. Here’s his article: Nat Geo/iPhone 5S pics

Here as well is a review of the new iPhone camera on dpreview.com – the best and most knowledgeable website for digital photography: dpreview.com iPhone 5S review

Here’s my take on it:

As most of you know, I’ve been taking photos professionally since I was 17 years old. I’ve always used Nikons and Leicas. But I love the Fuji digital cameras too for more compact work, principally because they’ve put a huge amount of R&D into their sensors, which is the heart of any camera.

I ummed and aaahed before deciding which camera to take with me on my Camino. I wanted to take my big Nikon D700 – a full frame professional level camera – but it was too heavy. And my smaller D3200 didn’t have exactly the lens I needed. So I settled on a little Fuji X10 camera, which turned out to be ok. Not great, but ok.

The size was good, ease of use was good, but I was always limited by the sensor. The small sensor didn’t allow for a large dynamic range. I shouldn’t blame the camera though – I chose to shoot jpeg and I should have shot RAW, which would have given me the dynamic range I craved.

I dismissed my iPhone 5 as an option for a camera for several reasons –

1. It was a fixed lens, and any zoom functionality would come at the expense of image quality.
2. It was an even smaller sensor than the X10.
3. It wouldn’t allow me to use selective Depth of Field.
4. Using the camera would drain the battery fast, and I needed the phone to work as a phone, too.

Seeing this Nat Geo photographer’s work though has made me reconsider the iPhone somewhat. And reading the reviews is also making me rethink.

The great advantage of using an iPhone as a camera when you’re walking the Camino is of  course that it’s small, light, and it’s always with you.

If I were to do another Camino in the next couple of months, what camera would I take?

I still wouldn’t use the iPhone, for the reasons above. But I have my eye on the new Fuji professional X series of cameras. There will be a new X-Pro2 out soon, and next week the X-E2 is being announced.

Both these cameras have a large APS-C sized sensor which allows for a big dynamic range as well as low light shooting. They also have interchangeable lenses and the lenses are very fine glass. They’re a pro-level camera yet they’re relatively small and light.

All that said – I think now with this new iPhone 5S and its updated camera, it is a very real alternative to a big lumbering expensive camera.

But in the end, choice of camera is so so personal. And as is proven time and again, it’s not the camera that creates a great shot. Look at what that Nat Geo photographer did with his iPhone!

One of our regulars, Debbie, asked me this question in a comment – why isn’t this blog bigger?

Well, I don’t actively seek to make it bigger.

I figure the right people will land here when they’re meant to land here. I’m taking a PGS approach to this. If their PGS brings them here, and tells them it’s right for them, then terrific. Similarly, there might be some who check out this blog and it doesn’t call to them. And so they go away. That’s okay too.

This blog is not to everyone’s tastes, I’m sure!

I don’t tag my posts, nor do I employ Search Optimisation techniques to drive traffic to this site. Occasionally I post on Ivar’s forum, when a milestone is reached. I did that yesterday, in his “Blogs and Photos” forum, to let them know we’d clicked over the 100K mark.

But other than that, I take the view that people will find us when they need to find us.

Also, my grand plan for this blog isn’t to get a huge traffic flow then put up advertising. No way. In fact I don’t have a grand plan. I just write here each day, and hope that every now and then something I write about has some relevance.

Bill

We crossed 100,000 page views.

Today we’ve already had 500 page views.

Thanks to you – this disparate brilliant amazing collective of people who inhabit this crazy place with me.

I love you all.

Bill