I'm Not Running Away. I'm A Visual Vagabond.

When you hear the words “Millennial,” “Freelance,” “Self-Employed,” “Creative,” or “Digital” in any combination you could be forgiven for assuming that the person being described by these words is running away from something. Whether that may be “The real world,” “Responsibility,” “Growing up,” or “The 9-5” people of my generation and chosen career field tend to get labeled something akin to “Digital Nomad” and thought of as someone trying to skirt responsibility.

I was hesitant to call this community “The Visual Vagabonds” actually, largely because of that stigma. There are definitely (as there are with any stereotype) people who embody the stereotype and justify the stigma. People who are running away from their responsibilities or trying to extend their party days.

But, in my experience, they aren’t us. They aren’t The Visual Vagabonds. They’re a flash in the pan, living their 15 seconds of fame in social media spotlight before they disappear into whatever inevitability they were trying to avoid.

I chose the name The Visual Vagabonds a little bit tongue in cheek. The connotation of a “Vagabond” is generally negative. It brings to mind the image of someone lost, confused, caught up in mistakes, without a home and a general wanderer. But what I have come to find in my own life and seen in the lives of amazing creative Visual Vagabonds around me, is that we use all of those traits to our advantage.

We’re lost, sure, quite often, in fact, but we got ourselves there on purpose. If you’re constantly in what and where is familiar you’ll never find new things. Not all who wander are lost. Okay, Tolkien, but a lot of us who wander are actively trying to find new ways to get lost so we can find ourselves.

We’re confused sometimes. Again, I would even say quite often. You’ll find me staring at a camera, a gadget, an edit, a story or an image thoroughly confused almost daily. But you’ll also see excitement. A Visual Vagabond seeks out challenges that baffle and confuse. So much of life comes with puzzles and the triumph that comes with solving them is an unparalleled feeling.

We get caught up in mistakes. Absolutely. We want to be good at what we do and so at times we dwell and even stay in the mistakes for a while. But we do not let them rule or ruin us. We embrace them. They’re the things that tell us we’re making progress. They’re the hints that show us how to solve the problem. And they’re the critique that help us get better at what we do.

We don’t have a home many times in our lives. And when we do we often long for the times when we get to be set loose in a place that isn’t our “Home.” There are new adventures, inspirational stories and beautiful strange (to us) cultures to immerse ourselves in if you let go, if only temporarily, of needing to be “Home.” Home is a beautiful place. But Home can also be the feeling we have being on the road.

And yes, we definitely wander, sometimes without an end goal, sometimes at the last minute and sometimes very poorly prepared. But don’t mistake it for a purposeless action. We wander to see the new, to explore and expand our perception of the world around us and to inspire our next step, next thought, next project and next goal.

I’m a Millennial. I’m a Creative. I’m Self Employed. I’m a Digital Freelancer.

But I AM NOT running away from anything. I’m running toward everything, relentlessly and passionately.

I am a Visual Vagabond.

Galen Murray

Owner of Visual Vagabonds and Freelance Camera Operator