Van-Life Photography with Coni Gajardo and Aidan Breaux

In this episode I’m joined by van-life photography couple and Big Photo Hunt members Coni Gajardo and Aidan Breaux. We dive into how living in their van and traveling across North America has shaped their photography, the highs and lows of life on the road, and the creative opportunities that constant movement brings behind the lens.

From living in my driveway (yes, really) to photographing elk outside their window, chasing the Northern Lights in Canada, and spending three months shooting on the beaches of Baja — their van-life journey is equal parts inspiring and eye-opening.

If you’re curious about nomadic photography, van-life as a lifestyle or what it’s like to let go and explore, Coni and Aidan’s story is one you won’t want to miss.

Show Notes:

Instagram: @outdoors.mantra

YouTube: @OutdoorsMantra

Website: outdoorsmantra.com

Van-Life Build: Ford Transit Van Build Blog

Prints: Photo Prints

We’re hosting a free live online town hall on September 10th at 7 p.m. ET. We’ll be talking photography, reviewing member photos, and answering your questions live. It’s a great way to learn, connect, and be part of the Big Photo Hunt community. It's free and everyone's welcome but an RSVP is required. 

Transcript

Welcome to the Big Photo Hunt podcast, a show where we talk with aspiring and professional photographers to help us all grow and improve our photography together. I'm your host, Ken Deckinger. If you're one of our community members and you'd like to be a guest on the show, please visit bigphotohunt.com for more information.

Speaker 1 (01:19.31)
Hey there, thanks so much for joining the conversation this week. My guests today are van life couple and big photo hunt members, Connie Gajardo and Aidan Breaux. We're gonna talk about how living in a van and traveling across North America has shaped their photography. Before that though, I tried something new this week. In my weekly Tuesday newsletter, I asked you a question and gave you the chance to record your answer so I could share it here.

A bunch of you did, which I love because this way it's not just me talking and learning about photography, but I'm including you too. The question was, when it comes to AI in photography, is it fair game just for touch-ups or should it be off limits? Here's what you said.

leave your message.

to the tone.

I feel like it is unfair advantage because not everyone has access to an AI. Hey Ken, this is Nate Riggins. I would say AI is mostly to be used just for touch-ups, but as far as creating photos off of, that's totally off limits.

Speaker 2 (02:27.406)
of AI.

Hello, Ken. I think that AI has come to make us reach new heights when it comes to creativity, art, also making our images go beyond what we might see. Hi, this is Pat Parasoni from... Actually, AI is done some wonderful things, but I don't think you should be...

world.

to art.

Speaker 2 (02:51.924)
in the original photo. It's never going to

photography itself.

Speaker 2 (03:05.431)
Allah

is here because it takes so

learning curve away. James, Louise, Blym.

I feel like it's okay for touch-ups, but if it's totally AI generated, it should be.

in a category of its own.

Speaker 3 (03:20.981)
I think it's their game.

in.

Just makes it more competitive.

I think it should be okay for touch-ups.

Thanks so much, all of you. Here's where I land on the AI question. Look, AI isn't going anywhere. It's already built into the tools that we all use. Photoshop rolled out Generative Fill last year, and Adobe says that more than a billion AI edits were made within the first few months. Lightroom now has AI masking and retouching built right in. And so as far as accessibility goes, it's universal.

Speaker 1 (03:58.302)
already tied into everything that we all use. My stance is that using AI the same way we use Photoshop or Lightroom to clean up an image to remove dust, maybe boost the sky, that's just another tool. Every photographer edits. I don't think anyone should feel ashamed for using it. But when AI creates something that never existed and you try to pass it off as a photograph, that to me crosses the line. At that point,

You're not documenting reality, you're making something else entirely. And I think honesty and transparency matters in photography, especially as we enter this new phase. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to the poll. I'll place next episode's question in my weekly newsletter. If you're not receiving that, visit bigphotohunt.com to sign up. Connie Gajardo and Aidan Breaux, my guest today, are a vanlifer photographer couple. Connie has been on the show once before on a different topic, this time...

They're both here and so I'm excited to share their story and journey with you.

Speaker 1 (05:31.726)
gonna do a few things today. First is I wanna talk about van life. I wanna talk about your van life. I wanna talk about photography, photography in van life. And then the third is I wanna talk about how we met and how we became friends because it's awesome.

Yeah, Aidan was saying, we're probably the only ones that have slept in your driveway.

This is up to your health.

Actually, just to clarify, you're not my only friends that have slept in the driveway. You're not the only big photo hunt members that have slept in my driveway. You're the only humans, period, that have slept in my driveway.

Thanks.

Speaker 1 (06:08.302)
All right, so can I start by telling the story and just jump in, okay? Because I have revisionist history. I'm going to make it sound really amazing.

Sounds great.

Last fall, I went to New Orleans. I have a cousin, he plays football. Now he's actually in the NFL. At the time, he was the quarterback at Tulane. So I went down to a football game. And when I was going there to New Orleans, I was like, okay, I'm going to go down. I'm obviously going to go see the game and say hello to the family. But I'm also going to go like just do photography. There were two things I wanted to do. One was I wanted to figure out where to go and what to do. But I also wanted to then go and find someone that was a photographer in New Orleans.

to interview live, well not live, but on location in New Orleans about photography. And I found Connie online, I emailed her and I was like, hey, I'm a bald guy, I live in Boston, and I wanna come down and interview you. So Connie, who obviously wasn't in the right state of mind, said yes, and we met and we spoke along the Mississippi River, and Aiden was with her, Aiden is her husband. And just for the record, that is very smart.

when some weird guy calls you and says, meet me on the Mississippi River. Bring your husband, always. Just anyone listening to this, always bring your husband. And we had a great interview. Wait, I want to play a quick clip. Hold on one second. ready? Here. It's just like fried dough, right? With like sugar.

Speaker 2 (07:36.022)
like a little pillow you have to bite. Definitely no. I don't know when was my last beignet. I swear like I tried to avoid them because you can't be eating beignets all the time but man they are addicting.

It looks super healthy.

Speaker 1 (07:50.478)
Let me smell this.

my gosh.

So I don't think any podcast host has ever brought you beignets before.

I think so, that's definitely true.

During our little Mississippi River rendezvous, Connie and Aiden told me that they were building a van out, and I had actually seen this on YouTube. It was like basically wood at that point. And so I was like, hey, you know, if you guys are ever in Boston where I live, you are always more than welcome to park in my driveway. And like, it was a sincere offer to see you guys know, but I literally thought that would be five to eight years later. And then I think it was five months later.

Speaker 1 (08:35.455)
And you're like, hey, or no, you guys were in like Maine. I don't know. You were somewhere and I saw you and you were already on the road. And I was like, don't forget you have an offer to come to my house. You're like, great. We'll be there Thursday.

Well, it was pretty gnarly actually because we were in Portland, Maine and it was like destiny, I swear to you, because we were literally doing this like lighthouse walking around type of thing and Aidan and I were trying to figure out where to go next because the thing is that one of our goals in the band is to try to go to every baseball stadium. So

We were like, man, we are so close to Boston. Maybe we could go to like a Red Sox game and at that time in like in the east side of the country We were doing a lot of what's called Harvest Host Which is like this app that you pay like a hundred dollars a year and you can sleep at Broody's and vineyards and farms and stuff like that even like people's driveways but in Boston there wasn't anything and

I share a story of a picture from our trip in Canada and you respond to it and you were like, that's so beautiful. I want to go visit. And when you send me that message, it hit me and I'm like, my gosh, Ken lives in Boston. And then we were like, my gosh, we should totally like go visit him.

We found the invitation and we were like, we're using this right now.

Speaker 1 (10:13.922)
was excited. It was awesome. It was so cool.

I had you answering in like two seconds. It was pretty incredible.

I was excited, I was so pumped to have you guys here. And so you basically brought your van and you lived in my driveway for about what, five or six days, and my kids thought it was the coolest thing in the world. And you're on the big photo hunt and you are the first, I'm pretty sure, the first couple to ever be in the big photo hunt weekly top 10 at the same time. Yeah, you guys like, yeah, I'm looking now, like a few weeks ago, you were like, you both had photos. There was one photo of Bryce.

So that's true.

Speaker 1 (10:50.58)
and in Mexico. Very cool. Yeah, it's a big deal, guys. Yeah.

I'm gonna Simp.

You know what's fun too is that Aiden and I have like totally different styles and setups of camera. So it's fun because we are together and all, but it's like completely different type of images.

It's cool, Aiden, I love your photos. When I first emailed Connie, I had no idea that your photos were good too, because I would have called both of you guys, but it's very cool.

thanks. I didn't post a lot back then. I mean, I did, but...

Speaker 1 (11:26.402)
So let's talk about the road. Let's talk about van life. What's it like? Is it what you thought it would be like? What are some of the things that exceeded your expectations? What are some things that haven't?

mean, I think van life's great. I think me, I'm very like type A and I'm very also like free-spirited. So I think I've been trained to be in a routine and do everything in a certain way, like all the things I grew up doing. But I have very supportive parents that like always said, oh yeah, go do what you want. And with the van, they were always really supportive of Connie and I. for us being like self-sufficient and building the van was amazing. And then living on the road and seeing it work.

And really loving it. feel like I sleep better in the van. Like this is home. So I think we've adapted really well. I don't think being in a small space is very hard for us. Just the opportunity to live off grid and not have paid an energy bill like since July or basically paid for water, maybe like a couple of times, you know, five times maybe in Mexico was like the most, you know, that we paid for water, but it's really necessary there and it's still 10 bucks or five bucks or something places.

think all that's just really cool.

me, having the van is like the best decision, the best project we could brought together because now for me at least it's like there's no limits. Also I feel like we complement each other pretty well when it comes to van life because like I'm a little bit more like in the air so you know I kind of bring him to go to more adventurous remote areas and he makes sure that we're gonna be safe.

Speaker 2 (13:07.95)
that we're gonna survive. Honestly, just like the fact that we are around nature is everything. Fun when it comes to photography for sure. Like today, I woke up at 6 a.m. and like I look outside and like there's this incredible sunrise. Just simple things or there is like elk migrating and I can see them from bed. It's just very beautiful.

Do you ever feel disconnected from the world? Not in the good way, obviously, like living off Gruden stuff, but do you ever feel too disconnected from the world? Do you guys have like Starlink or anything or no?

We do have a Starlink and we are connected all the time.

Yeah, maybe that's the thing that some people might think that we're so, we could be aloof and maybe I think we both would love to be aloof, but our jobs and.

I have to talk to my mom all day just because she wants to know where I am.

Speaker 3 (14:06.542)
and wanting to pay attention to things that are going on, even if maybe deep down you don't really want to. I watch a lot of baseball, too.

Also

The idea here is to be mobile, not to just disappear and be like, I'm living my best life, know, freedom, nothing matters. I'm retiring. No, like we're gonna continue working. We're gonna continue, you know, doing everything, cooking, watching our shows, but we just wanna move around.

This is like a good balance for us. like we're connected, but we're also kind of

Speaker 1 (14:47.202)
can see the little view over your shoulder Aiden. It's literally like a photograph is hanging on your wall.

Let if I can.

Yeah, can see like a meadow and you can see a big old mountain. Show them the mountain.

I'm gonna try to describe this for our listeners. I don't even know if I can, it's so gorgeous. There's like a meadow with little yellow flowers and then there's some pine trees, another meadow and then in the back is a mountain range with snow on it. And it's like a landscape photograph right there, but it's legit, it's real.

If I'm, if I'm correct and my phone's not going the wrong way, I'm pretty sure that's the core of light mountains too.

Speaker 1 (15:28.238)
No!

The mound on the choice light can.

So cool, it's gorgeous. You were in Mexico and would love to hear about that because there were people with you there, right? You were like a whole little posse on the beach in Mexico. Where was that? Tell me about that experience.

We were very fortunate because, so we were in San Diego in the beginning of the year in January and we are like, you know, getting a little bored even though we love San Diego but we literally have to be in these parking lots and stuff. So we're trying to figure out where our next movie is by one of our friends, James is his name. He's been traveling in his van for three years and he's like, you know, I'm going to Baja California for.

my second time and it's been really wonderful. It's beautiful. I mean, you guys would love it. And so Aiden and I are like, maybe this is a good chance for us to go. Cause in my mind, I felt like people that goes to Baja, it's like the advanced ones, know, the ones that been living in their van for like three years and we are like six months, newbies, know, babies. What are we doing going to Baja, you know, trying to be cool.

Speaker 2 (16:47.274)
And so we're like, maybe we should go now, go with James. He knows every place. He'll guide us and we'll be better. We'll be better together. And a little after that, we met more people. He had some friends going. We were like five bands at some point.

Yeah, just a whole gang of people.

We were going for a month and we ended up staying three months.

So let's talk about the photography because this is a photography podcast. I could go on all day talking about the van life. I'm obviously, as you know, when you were living in my driveway, by the way, should I be offended? You only stayed in my driveway for six days. You went to Baja and you stayed for three months. Should I, should I like.

Maybe we should return.

Speaker 3 (17:34.86)
We could do it. We were very well fed and gave us all the paper towels.

Yeah, free water.

Yeah, hose, that was a nice hose that you had.

You're welcome.

I have wonderful memories of Boston. It's one of my favorite times.

Speaker 3 (17:50.754)
We love meeting you, but we also know have a family and a wife.

So on the record, everyone's gonna hear this, you're always welcome in my driveway. And actually, if I recall. Thank you. I actually wanted to offer you our guest room, but someone was here, right?

Yeah, other, the nanny's family was from Colombia, you remember?

Get the

Speaker 1 (18:15.552)
Yeah, I think that's what it was. was something going on. exactly.

Yeah, you had a full house.

Yeah. All right. So let's talk photography. What I'm really curious about is how van life has, for lack of a better term, enhanced your photography or at least given you opportunities that you may not have had. I have this desire to, like when I have time to get in a van, I can't do what you do. I've got a whole family already, but over the summer spend a few weeks just driving across the country and just, you know, shooting everything. And so how has

Vanlife opened up opportunities for you with photography.

Well, definitely with nature and wildlife, it's been crazy. For example, something unexpected. We were in Canada and we see Northern Lights. That was amazing. And then going to places, you know, they appear in my Instagram and my phone. It's like, my gosh, this place looks out of this world like Bryce Canyon. They are unique opportunities. And I'm really trying to become better every day.

Speaker 2 (19:26.25)
and know my camera better than anything. I've had my camera, the Sony a7 III, for like five years now. Trying to wake up earlier every time so I can, you know, take more photos of sunset and, I mean, sunrise.

think wherever we live, even if it's in a photogenic place, you get kind of stagnant and not as inspired. I think getting out in the van, it forces you to see all these new places and want to, you know, take pictures because it's so new and novel. We often are in these vast open spaces and I really like just landscape photography and taking pictures of places that look very quiet and

open, kind of like Salvador Dali-ish, you know, like those open desert spaces that he has with like the elephants and the melting clocks. I don't know, I'm very inspired by these like wide open places.

Like for example, for me, I feel like I'm constantly trying to photograph in a way that you can kind of like assimilate how big a place is. Like I like to put the tripod, like I've become more of a tripod person actually lately, just because I'm doing a lot of video as well and I want to have a better shot and like a more steady thing, more than just, you know, handheld, which...

I've always done but I like to take photos you know with a zoom lens where I can be standing I put the interval mode and I go literally run so I can take I don't know a photo of a mountain and me that you can see me tiny because that's how really big this thing is because it's so hard to make justice of a place if you don't take a picture a certain way right?

Speaker 1 (21:21.012)
Do you get bored of locations and then feel the need to move?

From a point of view of photography, no, because I feel like it depends on my creativity. Sometimes I'm in beautiful places, but I'm just not there creatively. I mean, I could take pictures of so many things. And sometimes when we are going to a place, coming, like I'm coming with ideas of what I want to do. But, you know, sometimes my ideas don't work.

Or sometimes I just run off creativity or I get distracted. So I wouldn't blame the place.

Luckily for us, we've been pretty fortunate to have been able to keep moving a lot. So I don't think we've ever found ourselves really stuck unless it was in San Diego that one time and we'd already been there before. So we kind of knew what it was and we weren't so inspired to be there because we knew it was just for a second and we felt like we had to continue anyway. And we have already taken so many photos of that. And it was also very fall of G1.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:13.345)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:26.03)
That's true too, sometimes you take so many photos that it's like, okay, I think I'm good

Aidan, you mentioned this idea of these landscapes, these wide open spaces that you've been photographing. And I actually noticed that the photos that you've been posting on the big photo hunt. So I'm glad you mentioned that. Is that something that you've always liked to do or something that you discovered once you got out there and you kind of parked your van in the middle of a desert or something?

Honestly, I feel like I just put those thoughts together now. I really like Dali, so I think maybe that's something. But I think when I first started photography, was a lot of like cityscape stuff and street photography. And I liked skateboard growing up. So it's definitely almost like a change in mindset and kind of like where I'm at personally. And I feel like there's a lot going on just like growing up and being an adult and going through.

whatever like the world's going through that these places just like bring me peace. The fact that it's just like nothing, like it doesn't have to be an animal or anything in it. It's just like wide open and pretty. And it's like, not even like I'm trying to capture that. Like I literally just see it and I'm like, I want to take a picture of it. And I do use my phone. use this other camera that Connie gave me, this little camp snap thing that I just don't like to.

mess with settings that much or anything and it's not like I don't believe in it. just I like to be there in the moment and take the picture so yeah I'm glad you notice it because it's I don't know it's kind of like my style.

Speaker 2 (23:57.39)
I guess. I'm it out. Aidan is a lot more artistic and poetic when he takes a photo. And yeah, I will set up the tripod and put the filter and put the setting. Aidan is like, I don't want to worry about this. He'll take the photo. then, when it comes to cityscapes, he's more like he likes the angles and how this matches diagonally with this and that.

Architecture, yeah, geometry.

I'm probably in the middle, but the only reason I'm not like you Connie is because animals and like that stuff doesn't really interest me. I like people, you I like the cityscapes and stuff. One of the things I've never really liked is landscape photography and I dabbled in it recently and was actually kind of like, wow, I like these photos. And I think the reason I never liked it was because I really didn't know how to do it or I wasn't doing it right. And so now I started, I think maybe doing it a little bit right-ish.

And I've started liking it, so I'm gonna try to do a little bit more of that.

Yeah, I think, for example, I don't consider myself like, I'm a landscape photographer. I've been trying to take like more photos of like, I don't know, myself on a landscape just to make it easy on me. But like, I never do like, f.10, f.20. Like, no, I never do that type of thing.

Speaker 1 (25:21.698)
When we talked the first time, that's what you mentioned. mean, you mentioned, you liked wildlife. I'm sorry, you liked wildlife. Speaking of first time, I think you are now the second person that I've had on the podcast twice. The other is Ken Lee. Have you heard Ken Lee? He's awesome. He's a night photographer.

think I've seen it in your Instagram.

Was he the one that said,

He likes to it.

Favorite type of photography said boudoir

Speaker 2 (25:49.71)
And then you were like, I thought that was so funny.

No, it's night.

Well, he said that I was just shocked. like, I mean, you know, I've had two podcast episodes with him. We shot a big photo hunt lesson on exposure. We've talked a lot. I've gotten to know the guy and never once has he mentioned boudoir and or like, have I ever seen people in his photographs period? There are always these abandoned objects at night. And so, yeah, it was just like boudoir. I was like, Ken Lee boudoir.

What?

Speaker 2 (26:22.294)
You know the other person that it's in Big Photo Hunt that always calls my eye is Steven, which he actually started following me on Instagram and messaged me because they talked to you and they really wanted to like talk and stuff. And his photography is incredible and like vibrant colors and very inspiring when it comes to like drone photography too, which we're saving money to get a drone now.

Stefan, right? Yes. Cool. I've told this story about four times before, it's probably anyone that's about to hear it again is probably going to throw a tomato at me. he's been a big photo of a member since literally like week one. And I gave him a prize away. He won it. And so was about to announce it going to podcast or video. But, know, we'd emailed before, but I never knew how to say his name. And so I wrote him, I said, hey, how do you pronounce your name? And it took him about

a day or so to get back to me and I was antsy and I felt like I'm just going to go ahead and make this video anyway. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt and he lives in England so I thought maybe he's French. So I introduced him. was like, congratulations to Stephane Chavay. And Steph writes me back and I finally get his response. He's like, hey man, it's Stephane Chav. dude, I'm sorry. I got antsy. I already made you French.

Hahaha!

Speaker 1 (27:46.471)
He's like, no problem, dude.

Yeah.

That's funny.

Yeah, he's a great guy. He posts some beautiful photos in the big photo hunt with his wife, Emma. And they are very similar to you guys in a lot of ways. They don't live in a van, but they travel the world. And right now they're in England, but they want to get back out and go see the world. I want to be conscious of your time though. So one question is, how has van life improved your photography? Has it?

Yeah, I think by visiting all of these different places it's just like a blank canvas to shoot shoot shoot and And just try to become more creative. So It's been an amazing opportunity for me When it comes to photography for sure and it's the type of photography that I was dreaming to be able to work with you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (28:43.15)
Yeah, and for me, think just it makes me take more photos. So, you know, not every one of my shots is for posting. Not every one of my shots comes out good enough to post. So I just have more opportunities and then I get one that I'm like, this one's great. I really want to keep it. And I think that's important. So.

Yeah, also we've met more people that's into photography like in Baja. It was me and then the three boys that they were like camera fanatics to and it was really cool to be in the same place going on the same sunrise hike and then see what they had. And I'm like, you you start learning of like what they do and their point of view and how different all of our...

the framing of the landscape, everything was different. I mean, it was so interesting. I was like, I really like that. I want to be more like you.

By the way, next time I want you to this interview in Spanish, please.

Sí, vamos, 100 %

Speaker 1 (29:59.086)
All right, so any tips or anything you want people to know, people that are considering van life, photography, photography and van life, anything that you think is important for people to consider?

I would say if you're considering doing band life, go for it. Even if it's like rent a van for the weekend just to try it, I would say go for it because it's just, it's pretty fun. It's really fun and I know some people, it can be hard, so definitely try it before you jump all the way in. We've been pretty fortunate. If you like nature and photography or

just go explore. It's just like, it's just gonna be a blank canvas to go out and explore. And everybody that tells me, man, I wanna leave an event. I'm like, you should do it.

I think we've learned that there's tons of ways to make it happen. It doesn't have to be a van. People have campers that they haul around, things on the back of trucks, know, shells that they put up. People just go camping. think if you're interested in that, think nowadays there's resources out there to have a little inverter or a satellite internet connection if you can make it happen.

The back of your car.

Speaker 3 (31:21.046)
It's easy and it's kind of the same thing with photography too. I love photography, I appreciate it and I admire people that study it for years but if you want to take pictures you can take it with your phone, you can take it with a little camera. It could be a point and shoot, it could be a little Polaroid thing. Just as long as you're enjoying it, that's what it's all about. What about big photo hunt? I really do feel like when I post a photo it's a bunch of people that recognize what good photography is and you can only post one photo.

So that's what I like.

Speaker 3 (31:50.924)
You can't post a bunch and.

Also, one of my favorite things of Big Photo Hunt is that you can see the settings that the photo was taken with. I love that. That's one of my favorite things. Also something I was going to say, like if you're going to be doing van life and you want to do photography and stuff, like you'll realize that you don't need much to survive. And then there's people like, you know, that I don't want to have like everything disorganized or a mess or dirty.

I would say it's easier to have everything clean and organized just because you have to be moving all the time. Like in my regular house, would leave like my earrings everywhere and now, no, everything's organized and clean and my camera has a place.

I understand that. So Connie, you're a veteran of this podcast. So you know that at the end of every episode, I ask three questions, but because you've already done this, I'm going to aid in today. All right. If you're a listener and you want to hear what Connie answered to these questions, you can find her previous episode. might be like 15 episodes back or so. It was when I was interviewing Connie in New Orleans. So if you look through the titles, wherever you get your podcasts, you can find it there.

and you can listen to Connie's answers. Aiden, first question is what's your favorite genre to shoot and why?

Speaker 3 (33:10.382)
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (33:15.63)
I'm going say landscape just because that's the mindset I'm in and these big open spaces and kind of just this feeling of disconnection from anything but nature is what I'm looking for. I think just having a mind that thinks a lot, it's nice to think about nothing. So I like those shots. It reminds me of tranquil times.

Question number two, what camera system do you use?

My go-to camera right now is called Camp Snap. It's pretty approachable. It's like $60. It's got like a 2000 photo space, know, like internal memory card on it already. And so it's like a point and shoot that shoots in a film style. And you can like change like three different filters with it if you want. So you like have minimal editing after. In fact, it's like JPEG. I don't think it comes out raw at all.

And I use my phone, my iPhone 13, and that's good enough for me.

Okay and on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most, 1 being the least, how often do you get that burning itch to go out and shoot photography? Not to be confused with a burning itch. We'll leave that to you and your van sanitation.

Speaker 3 (34:30.26)
Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna say a three out of 10. Connie like reminds me to take my camera places. Yeah, I think that's the beautiful thing about photography for me is that I don't go out to do it. I go out with it in my pocket. And if I feel it, I do it and I'll take my camera with me places and I don't even take a shot. That's just kind of how I am. But I used to go out specifically photography from when I was younger.

the

Speaker 3 (35:00.622)
And I don't think a whole lot's changed. just think, just like maybe my mindset, but when I do it, I have a lot of fun and I know I'm in like a good space. So it's special for me.

Cool. If you're listening to this podcast, I really want you to go follow Coni and Aidan because, well, there's a few reasons. One is their photos are gorgeous, their life is cool, and they're the nicest people on the planet. so, Connie and Aiden, so that the whole world can tag along on your van life photography adventures, where can they find you online?

You can find us as Outdoors Mantra for Instagram, TikTok. You can do Outdoors.mantra. And then for YouTube, you can find us as Coni and Aidan Outdoors Mantra as well. And in YouTube, we have our whole band bill in our travels as well.

And for those of you that are writing this down or you're writing or whatever, the spelling is O-U-T-D-O-O-R-S dot as in Mary, A as in A, N as in Nancy, T-R-A. Go give them a look, give them a shout, say hi, tell them that you heard them on the Big Photo Hunt podcast so that they actually know that people listen to this thing.

Yes, go follow. You will help us so much. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:27.574)
weird

I am happy we know each other. I'm happy that Connie met me down by the Mississippi River. That sounds like we should sing a song or something. I'm happy that Aiden came for protection. That was very, very smart. And I'm also happy that you took me up my offer and parked your van in my driveway. And one more thing I'm happy about is that hopefully you'll do it again in the future. You're always invited. And if you're listening to this episode and you have a van, park in my driveway. Guys, thank you so much.

Seriously.

Yeah, thank you Ken. Thank you.

Thank

Speaker 1 (37:01.038)
Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. Our next show will feature more valuable stories from our community members. If you'd like to audition to be a guest, please visit bigphotohunt.com for more information. Thanks again for listening today.