Tag: Drone

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Going Out On Your Own

The road to self employment is a piece of cake and everyone should do it.

Now that I have your attention I will come clean, That first line isn’t true. For most anyway.

Self employment for me is about a dream. Not just a boring business that I copy and paste a how to from others. It’s about creating what I view is my dream life and living each day as I want to. This isn’t at all easy.

Last week we shot to the Far North to help my parents with their little slice of rocky roaded self eployment. You can find Saturday here

They have had easily enough of their own problems incl that big shed burning down but boy, what an amazing process for the produce.

Sunday morning we were up and looking to score a feed (thumbnail hints as to how it went)

Back to self employment. As far as my dream goes, in my mind I want to go skim, surf, spear, run my brand and shoot content all day.

The complications arise when you actually have to make a few bucks from these things because life is expensive. One thing I’ve always had from the start is product to sell and I’m always looking to expand this. Selling is hard but when it’s your own product but boy, it’s satisfying. Anytime someone wants to fork out their hard earned cash on something I made makes the pursuit of the dream worth it!

Producing content is much harder than selling product as it requires far more of my time invested, for much less income. If I wasn’t so passionate about it, I wouldn’t be doing it. For some reason I love it!

Oh and on a sales orientated pitch you can sign up to my mailing list here.

On that note, I will see you at the beach!

-Sam

 

 

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Golf Photography & Videography New Zealand

Golf is a love or hate sport. Millions of people around the world are in love with the game. Millions of people think “chasing a little white ball around is stupid”.

Little do those people know is that the balls come in more colours than just white ha.

I’ve spent a lot of time on Golf Courses over the years. Hours upon hours practicing, mowing greens in the dark, playing tournaments and generally loving the manicured, green environments they provide.

The sport of Golf here in New Zealand is popular but my feeling towards how clubs market themselves are a little out of date. Social media and online applications are king and golfers love to see their favourite courses from different angles. In fact I would rate golfers as some of the most enthusiastic about their chosen sport. Social media engagement tells me this.

Before I get into a few more details, check the video below.

What does this mean for clubs? It means advertising that works. It gives the golfers a taste of what they can play, the views and colours of the course, the warm up before the warm up. You can pitch content towards corporate groups as to why they should be playing your course. Excite the members about playing their course and attract new ones to it!

For tournament golfers and those wanting to analyze their swing, it means high speed swing capture to see if you’re putting the club where you should be (or shouldn’t).

For social groups it means professional video and photos for your own personal and social uses. Document your 4 day golfing trip anyone?

With video certainly painting a bright picture, still photography has it’s own place

G blog 1

Professional shots of professionals. Mike Hendry wedging into Omaha’s 13th.

G blog 2

Suited for social applications!

G blog 3

Corporate.

G blog 4

How bad does this make you want to play.

G blog 6

A unique perspective I mentioned earlier.

G Blog 5

Seasonal weather events are some of my favourite shots.

So there you have it, some examples of what I can do for you. I’m sure this blog post could go forever but if you’re interested about what I can do for you or your club then please email me sam@oxsenterprises.com

See you on the greens.

-Sam

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Marlin, Surfing & Smoked Fish – Alive In New Zealand – Ep 9

Morning blog

It’s that time of the month where I look back and thing about how warm the water was! Check out the jam packed month here

Being mid June the weather has certainly cooled but I’m kicking on. Got some exciting stuff coming up!

See you at the beach!

-Sam

 

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Get A Hobby

The dictionaries definition of hobby is this “an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.”

Blues blog

As children we all have hobbies. We have plenty of free time, therefore we have hobbies. Some of us continue with these hobbies our whole lives, most of us don’t.

As “adults” we need a hobby or two. Judging by our obesity statistics my opinion is that that hobby could do with being somewhat physical. A hobby that makes you sweat and improves your physical fitness is the best kind of hobby.

A lot of retired people need more hobbies. This would help occupy their time, assist with the aging process and lastly (and hopefully) give them an interest besides targeting young people having fun.

Even though we retire from work at a late age we seem to retire from hobbies much, much earlier. Remember the days when you had time to be bored? BORED! Now most of us just work too much in order to “get ahead”. I don’t quite know what is “ahead” but I do know a life without time for my hobbies is a shit life.

One of my favourite quotes is “You didn’t stop skateboarding because you got old. You got old because you stopped skateboarding”. I don’t skate but this is absolutely perfect.

I am an obsessive hobbyist. When I find something I like, I like to do it. Every so often isn’t enough, that’s not a true hobby. I want to get good at it and everything is a competition, including with myself. It’s gotten to the point where I believe you can monetize any hobby. But why do you want to make money from your hobby?

TO DO IT MORE!

This isn’t easy. In fact it’s bloody hard, just like life.

This weekend consisted of hobbies, nothing really else. Skimboarding, diving and good food was the order for Saturday

Sunday with better viz and a beaut forecast we were off to hit the water

If you’ve been following me for a while that this is a fairly common thing here. I’m learning more about myself all the time and where my hobbies can take me. It’s much further than you would think.

I welcome you to adopt a similar view.

See you at the beach. Obviously.

-Sam

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Battle Of The Bars – My Favourite Thundercat Race Of The Season

What happens when you combine huge clean waves, fast inflatable boats and some people keen/brave/stupid enough to pilot them?

Botb web

Put simply, a butt puckering race that not everyone is going to finish.

Being very new to Thundercat racing and really not much of an idea of the going ons from a spectators perspective, it’s been a bloody great challenge to get it all on film this year. It’s taught me plenty of things about my own style of shooting with the biggest one being that I feel very comfortable with a very strong “run & gun” approach. There’s certainly no rehearsal, just get the damn shot!

The last leg of the nationals saw us out at the Elbow Sailing Club on the Waikato river, a scheduled prop change at Karioitahi Beach, a bumpy ride around Manukau heads then a drag race to the finish in the Waiuku township. The GoPro footage was fairly intense with the huge surf and committed racers. Check it below

As for the 2018 season I’m already thinking big. Better production, more ideas, more content and another great season.

Lastly a huge thanks goes to the organisers and racers. I have enjoyed this far more than I thought I would and I thought I was really going to enjoy it. Seeing a group of people passionate about something that scares the shit out of most people is fantastic. The competition, the beach, the boats and the laughs has got me excited for the next season already!

Look out for Blaze next season 😉

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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A New Look Alive In New Zealand – Ep 7

With 2017 almost over ha! Sort of, not really. To kick off this years series of Alive In New Zealand I wanted to mix the standard editing style with more of a vlog feel. Vlogs are popular and my vlog channel is almost bigger than my main so that’s my approach.

DD Blog full post

This will make the series longer and hopefully more interesting and engaging. This episode has all the drone shots you can imagine, thundercats, spearfsihing and some mad buggers on a wake winch. Take a look at the new episode below

Long term I want to make this series an accurate representation of not just my life but hopefully a lot of Kiwis lives! With a bit of luck the next episode won’t be too far away.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Nothing Motivational

Trying to come up with something motivational and/or thought provoking each week is pretty hard. Talking about what you’ve been up to in the last week is easy.

Kawau bound blog

In this society which we acknowledge suffers from Tall Poppy Syndrome, talking about yourself is frowned upon especially even hinting that you may be good (or even okay) at something. So here’s the balance. Each week I try to provide something at least a little bit thought provoking…. Whilst talking about myself ha. Neat huh.

This week I don’t really have anything thought provoking but boy am I having a good time. I finally feel a little more focused and am very happy with a few of my latest little projects. Last weekend we shot off for a dive with the intent of getting some fish for the smoker. A slow start but I managed to run hot towards the end. Check it here

Sunday was a smokey day. At times, smoked fish is a huge part of my staple diet. I love the stuff but only with salt. If you use sugar on your smoked fish then you’re doing it wrong. Wrong!

So that’s it for this week. No motivation, just fun.

Luckily having fun in itself is motivating!

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Finding Your Thing

We all need a thing. That passion, that interest, that I’m going to go do that on Saturday thing.

Glassy out blog

I have four things. These are all things that through experience I know I thoroughly enjoy doing these things more than the average person. Why? I’ve always enjoyed certain thing a lot. Obsessive, enthusiastic, maybe a little bit crazy. That’s why.

I do them as much as possible. Like a lot, several times a week in fact because well, why not? That’s what makes me tick.

The next two videos are all about what makes me tick as I spent another weekend doing these things that I love.

One thing I don’t enjoy is bored people trying to shut other peoples fun down. This day was extremely fun minus one blemish

As for you thing you might be wondering how to find it, what it is, how do you go about it? Well if you don’t have a thing that you are super passionate about then start looking. Do something different. For the average person you need to expand your social circle and have a look around. There’s a few people in different areas doing your thing.

Things are good.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Living Outside The Box

One of more favourite topics to talk about is life. More specifically how we seem to live in a box. We go to school, then we get to go to Uni, accumulate debt then settle into a 40 year career where we work too much and get two weeks off at Christmas. Awesome huh!

Western contrast 2 blog

Not really. This exact way of living is what I’m trying to avoid. It just seems boring.

I want excitement, I want variety, I want new things but most of all I want to create. I talk to a lot of people about what’s going on. Some of them even like to express how lucky I am to be doing what I’m doing which in my opinion seems to completely disregard my choices to do this. It’s all luck, I didn’t actually choose or work towards it. I just got lucky. Thanks. Dumbass.

In the last week I’ve had a couple of experiences pawned off as luck. First up is an interview I had with Matt Watson of the ITM Fishing Show. No luck involved if you ask me, just hours and hours of putting in work to get to that place.

The next day was Marlin fishing day. Yes there’s luck involved here. An educated guess will put you in a rough position as to where the fish are. There’s a bit of luck involved if you hook up or not. We did 🙂

Here’s a couple of bonus pics

Mar 4 blog Mar 3 blog Mar 2 blog Mar 1 blog

 

The next couple of days I was exhausted. A bit of a come down from the stress and excitement maybe. The weather was perfect too but I simply had to rest, then get home

So where to from here? The majority of people I’ve spoken to regarding this job know my strong feelings towards my brand. You know these three little letters, OXS. Basically right now I’m making decisions based on where I want to be in a years time. Neither option is a completely inside the box way of life. Neither will be boring or lead me to feel trapped. I think.

There is still shortlisting for this job and I still have some pondering to do. All I know is that I will be avoiding a way of life that places me inside the box with the majority of people.

I guess you could probably call me a little lucky 😉

See you at the beach!

-Sam

 

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Home (for now)

purp-hendos-blog

What the bloody hell happened over the last little while? For someone who hasn’t had a drink in over 9 months, this Christmas period has been an absolute whirlwind. I legitimately have to look back through video to work out what I did and where.
Routine is funny like that. Even though I live a fantastically varied life, having somewhat of a routine is what helps me be productive. It’s times like this right now when I come home and have to play catch up. A lot of catch up! I don’t have a fancy laptop for editing yet so all the work has to happen when I get home. This is good and bad.

I have been fairly free from the 24th of December but lets start the story from the 27th. 1600+km in my truck have been added, with the biggest mission being at Cape Reinga for sunrise on the 2nd and down to Matarangi by 9am on the 3rd. I speared my best Snapper and Trevally to date. Got taxed by sharks (again) at Spirits Bay. Had a very successful dive in 60m of water. Almost completely wrote my longboard off. Stayed in a couple of small towns I hadn’t before with existing and new friends. Shot just under 200gb of footage and most important of all, enjoyed it all immensely. So much so that the only real reason I came home was so I din’t get further behind with work.

As for 2017 I have a few unanswered questions. Aside from wanting to grow every platform I have I don’t know if I want to be based in Omaha anymore. The area is growing and as far as getting local inclusion with what I’m doing, it has been a spectacular failure. There’s a few thoughts here

I’m currently locked in my editing room so if you want me then that’s where I will be.

See you at the beach.

-Sam