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Since February 2021, Abigail Martin has been crisscrossing the United States in a 2017 Ford Transit 2WD cargo van, lovingly nicknamed “Alexvander.” And all the while, as a photographer and content creator, she’s been doing her due diligence documenting the realities of #VanLife for the rest of us. “Anyone who lives this way is a glorified dirtbag,” she says through chuckles on a recent phone call. “You’re living in a vehicle. You’re showering at gyms or on the side of the road.”
Over the course of her van life journey, Martin has spent months roving the California coastline. She’s spent several days rigging a rope swing in a Moab canyon with friends. She’s made pit-stops at countless hot springs, and camped on snow-capped mountains. However, she also refuses to shy away from the unsexy, unfiltered truths that are so often masked in our social media feeds. For her, the uncurated moments are representative of the many difficult, beautiful moments that have accompanied her choice to live life out of a moving vehicle. “It’s all about perspective,” she says. “Our experiences are what we make them out to be. Van life is glamorous because of the things I get to see and do.”
デジタル·コンテンツクリエイターとしての現在の仕事とは対照的に、手に取れる物理的な写真をずっと好んできたマーティンは、スマートフォンから直接写真を印刷できるinstax Link WIDEプリンター とLink WIDEアプリ (Apple App Store, Google Play) を使って、愛おしい思い出を蘇らせ、写真と共に道を走っている。「私にとって写真は、とても大事なもの」と彼女は言う。「スクリーンに映っているものは、本物の、手に取れる写真とは違う。だから、私のバンの中には、そこらじゅうにプリントした写真が飾ってある。私のホームは、旅の中で作る思い出と、出会う人たちだから」。息を呑むほどに美しく雪に覆われた山脈から、広大な砂漠のキャニオンまで彼女にとって、Link WIDEは特別な瞬間を残すために欠かせない存在となっている。「思い出を全部プリントアウトできることはもちろん、写真全体を——切り取りなしでそのまま——印刷できるのは本当に画期的だと思う」とマーティンは付け加える。
In spite of her current work as a digital content creator, Martin has long favoured physical photographs — like using the instax Link WIDE Printer and Link WIDE App (Apple App Store, Google Play), which allow her to print photos straight from her smartphone — as a way of giving her dearest memories new life and carrying them with her while on the road. “They’re so valuable to me,” she says. “A screen is not the same as a real, tangible photograph, which is why I’ve always had prints hanging everywhere in my van. The memories you make and the people you meet along the way are what make a home.” And as someone whose favourite snaps include everything from breathtaking snow capped mountainscapes to expansive desert canyons, the Link WIDE has become a particularly useful tool for preserving those special moments. “Being able to print all of my captured memories is one thing, but being able to print the full picture — uncropped and unchanged — is a game-changer,” she adds.
Now, on the heels of a recent move to the U.K., she’s in the midst of an entirely new chapter of her van life adventure — this time, featuring a shiny new vehicle she’s decked out in prints of her favourite memories from the States. And while she’s excited for what’s to come, it certainly wasn’t easy saying goodbye to Alexvander. In order to commemorate him, Martin was sure to bring along one of her favourite photos: the van itself in all its glory, backlit by a spectacular desert sunset.
For her, Alexvander is physical proof that she can, indeed, achieve anything. Case-in-point: Not only did she work three jobs and take out a loan just to purchase him in his original form (a traditional sprinter van, complete with seats), but she borrowed tools and rigorously consumed how-to videos in order to transform him into a functioning, livable space — building an adjustable bed frame and installing a kitchenette, shelving, and lighting over the course of five months, despite having never picked up a drill prior. “Before leaving home, I was proudly, fiercely independent,” she adds.
Concurrently, Alexvander also represents the importance of connection and finding community, even while leading a nomadic lifestyle. “At first, my defence mechanism was, ‘I don’t need anyone,’ but I didn’t know then that with van life, things change on an hourly basis,” she explains. “You have to roll with the punches.” These unexpected twists and turns — like, say, finding herself stationed at a campsite riddled with COVID-19 cases just a few weeks into being on the road — have urged her to let her guard down and open herself up to the generosity of others.
“I had made new friends on the campsite where I was staying, and we threw a party. We assumed no one could have COVID-19 at this point…but then we all got it,” she says. For Martin, van life could already be isolating at times — but battling intense symptoms while confined, alone, within the walls of a van felt even more so. Fortunately, she says it taught her to accept help from, and offer help to, her fellow van life travellers. Whoever wasn’t sick at the moment would go grab her groceries, while she opened up her van’s amenities to others who were also isolating. “I was the only one on the site with a toilet, so you can imagine how that went,” she laughs. “We survived it, and then all got matching cactus tattoos.”
This time around, Martin has two new, unexpected guests along for the ride: a dog and a boyfriend, neither of whom were part of her original roadmap. As someone who previously would have described herself as both an overplanner and an overthinker, she says this very duo has helped her to adopt more of a “go with the flow” mentality.
Take meeting Archie, pictured above, for example. “I was very against getting a dog because of the lack of access to parks or having to walk the dog in remote places,” she explains. “But I started meeting other van travellers with dogs, and things began to shift. I went to a shelter in Salt Lake City, and Archie fell asleep on my lap… and that was that.” He’s been sleeping in her bed since their second night together — and when they’re on the road, he opts for the passenger seat. “He’s the most chill dog ever,” she adds.
Martin’s keen eye for documenting her travels has amassed her quite the social media following (think: almost 900k TikTok followers), but the memories behind each photo or video — the stories, the lessons — far outweigh the clout that comes with internet fame. “As a photographer, sometimes I can’t resist getting ‘the shot,’” she says. “Those photos are special because of what you went through to get them — lugging through snow, waking up before dawn for lighting. But the candids are even more special; those capture the real human moments.”
For Martin, it’s not always about what’s pictured in a photograph — a mountain range, new friends posed around a campsite — but, rather, an image’s ability to instantly transport her back to a specific moment in time. For example, a print she was particularly excited to bring to the U.K. features nothing but her arm hanging out of her passenger seat window, with an unrecognisable mountainous landscape behind it. “My boyfriend, Dante, took this one near Breckenridge, Colorado, as we were heading back to Boulder. I was so tired. It was 10 a.m., but we were blasting music. You can’t see him, but Archie is sticking his head out the window.” It’s this feeling — exhausted-yet-filled-with-gratitude while taking in the beauty of the open road — that she wants to recreate as she continues on her journey, and this print serves as a constant reminder.
All in all, every print of Martin’s comes with a story, many of which she holds onto as physical totems of her evolution over the last few years; a tangible way to ensure these memories aren’t lost over time. “I’m a different person than I was when I first started my van life journey,” she explains. “Community, family, and friends are much more important than I thought, as are the people I’ve encountered along the way. Hanging out with strangers around a campfire is like therapy — people cry and share and are very accepting; many are some of the best people I’ve met. And now I get to take our memories with me wherever I go.”
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