Sean Norman has lived in a square kilometre of Richmond for most of his life.
Now, with the help of crowd funding, the self-employed photographer is moving lock, stock and barrel 1,570K north-north east to share his love of the aurora borealis with tourists.
Speaking from his rented studio apartment on Granville Avenue, across from Value Village, 28-year-old Norman told how his family has helped co-signing the mortgage on a new home he’ll turn into a guesthouse in remote Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.
And, thanks to a fundraising drive on website Kickstarter, he’s closing in on raising the $17,000 he needs to launch a Northern Lights photography tour business.
“I grew up on Citation Drive, just around the corner from here, with my parents and went to Palmer secondary, also close by,” said Norman, who juggles running his own wedding and lifestyle photography business with trips to the far North to photograph the famous dancing lights phenomenon.
“I’m a winter person, I love the cold and the snow, and I loved the small, community feel (in Yellowknife) and it has a great arts scene going for it as well, there are tons of artists and photographers.
“And as cold as it is, people love to be outside up there and that’s another reason I fell in love with it.”
Norman first witnessed the Northern Lights in the winter of 2007 while in Norway and he was hooked.
“I had to keep going back again and again to see them until my dad said, ‘hey, you know you can see them in Canada, right?’
“I think I just liked the novelty of going overseas to see them.”
And four years ago, Norman snagged a ground crew job with a small airline flying out of YVR to Yellowknife, which just happened to offer staff discounted flights to NWT.
Almost two years ago, Norman was building a home up there, but it didn't work out, he explained.
However, in the fall of last year, an opportunity came up with the same building company to buy a house that was already built.
“I got some financial help from the family with the down payment and they’re co-signing the mortgage.”
Then, with his mind turning to how to turn his dream of running photography tours into reality, a friend suggested crowd funding.
“The more I looked into it, the more sense it made,” said Norman.
“But it ended up being just as much about connecting with people interested in the Northern Lights as it was about raising money for the business.”
Needing start-up cash of around $17,000 for items such as clothes (Parkas) for the guests and tripods for photography, Norman’s site is sitting at just more than $13,000, with ten days still to go.
There are all kinds of rewards for donors, depending on how much they donate; from prints of his Northern Lights photos to an all-expenses paid trip to Yellowknife for the bigger “investors.”
“I did have my doubts (about crowd-funding) and I’d no idea I’d be able to raise this much,” added Norman.
“I’m just going to wing it with the guest house thing. I just have one bedroom for the guests, it’s one half of a duplex and I’ll maybe purchase the other half if things go well.”
Norman plans to up sticks within the first two weeks of May, before taking possession of his new home May 28.
“I’ll get to work in the summer and hopefully open up at the end of August,” he said.
“There’s too much daylight to see the Lights before then anyway.”
If you’d like to donate to Norman’s fundraising campaign, go to www.kickstarter.com/projects/1958838671/seans-northern-light-photography-tours.
