From Survival to Stability: The Day I Bought a Photo Printer
From Survival to Stability: The Day I Bought a Photo Printer
I bought a dedicated photo printer this week.
Not the flimsy kind that sounds like it is fighting for its life every time you hit print. A real machine. An Epson SureColor P800 now sits in my office, quietly doing its thing, ready to turn pixels into something you can actually hold.
Of course, I had to break it in properly. So I printed a photo taken during Artemis II.
A photo taken in space. Printed in my office.
That still feels ridiculous in the best way.
But this is not really about the printer.
It is about where I used to be.
Not that long ago, I could not afford food. Not in the “cutting back” kind of way. I mean every dollar had a job, and none of those jobs included feeding me. Bills came first. Whatever was left went to my dog, Cordelia. She ate. I figured the rest out.
Sometimes figuring it out meant going without. Sometimes it meant stealing.
Usually hot pockets. Packs of four. Four meals if you stretch it. Grocery stores turned into quiet missions where the goal was simple and very clear. Get food. Do not get caught. Leave.
At the time, it did not feel dramatic. It was just part of the routine. Another thing on the list. Survive today. Worry about tomorrow later.
I remember being asked once how that made me feel. Having to steal food just to get by. And I did not have an answer. I had to actually stop and think about it, because I had spent so long just getting through things that I never stopped to process any of it.
When I finally did, it hit harder than I expected.
Now fast forward a few years, and I am standing in my office buying a printer that exists purely for my photography. Not because I need it. Not because it solves a problem. Just because I want it.
And my brain still does not quite believe that timeline.
How do you go from counting coins and skipping meals to investing in something like this
I have said a lot of harsh things about my past self over the years. Blamed him for mistakes. Second guessed decisions. All of that. And some of it is fair. He got things wrong. Sometimes really wrong.
But he also dealt with things that were not easy. Not even close.
He kept going anyway. He figured it out, piece by piece, even when it was messy and imperfect. He did the work to get out of that place, even if he did not always do it the right way.
And now I am here because of that.
Not in spite of him. Because of him.
So yeah, this printer matters.
Not because it makes beautiful prints.
But because it reminds me just how far things can actually change.
Vintage Camera Advertisements: The Beautiful Art of Selling Cameras in the 1980s
This morning started the way a lot of mornings start now: coffee in hand, thumb scrolling through Instagram Reels. Once upon a time people sat at the breakfast table with a newspaper and caught up on the world while the toast cooled. Now we sit there half-awake, letting the algorithm decide what we’re going to look at before the caffeine fully kicks in.
Somewhere in that endless stream of videos, a creator started talking about the Internet Archive. I’ll admit something that might sound a little strange for someone who spends plenty of time online, I had never actually explored it before. I knew it existed, of course, but I’d never gone wandering through it myself.
In the video, the creator mentioned that the Archive contains scans of old print advertisements from magazines. That alone was enough to grab my attention. I’ve always had a soft spot for vintage design and photography. Something about the look and feel of older ads just hits a certain aesthetic nerve for me.
So naturally I opened up a browser and decided to see what all the fuss was about.
It didn’t take long before I landed on a page filled with old magazine ads. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. It felt a little like rummaging through a dusty attic full of old magazines someone forgot to throw away, except everything was neatly scanned and waiting for you to stumble across it.
Two ads jumped out almost immediately. Both came from an April 1986 issue of Playboy.
Now this might surprise some people, but growing up Mormon meant I didn’t exactly have access to many Playboy magazines. So even now, as an adult, my experience with the magazine is pretty limited. Like most people, I grew up hearing the classic joke about people claiming they read Playboy “for the articles,” and I always assumed that was just a clever excuse.
What I didn’t realize until today is that back in the 80s and 90s a huge chunk of the magazine was actually articles and advertisements. From what I could see, something like eighty percent of the pages were writing or ads, leaving only a smaller portion for what most people immediately associate with the magazine.
And some of those articles were surprisingly serious.
While browsing, I stumbled across a long piece about the War on Drugs and the propaganda surrounding it. Not a throwaway article either, the writer had clearly done his homework. It was thoughtful, detailed, and the kind of thing that probably gave readers plenty to chew on.
It definitely wasn’t what I expected when I clicked into a random Playboy issue from the 80s.
But honestly, the real highlight for me was the advertising.
Inside that same issue were two camera ads, one for Canon and one for Olympus, and they immediately caught my eye. They were
beautifully done. Strong composition, interesting lighting, and just enough storytelling in the image to make you imagine the kind of life you might live with that camera in your hands.
They just don’t make ads like that anymore.
What struck me most is that these cameras are now decades old, yet those advertisements still have the power to make me want one. That’s impressive. Most modern ads barely stick in your memory long enough to survive the next scroll.
These older ads feel different. They’re stylish, thoughtful, and very clearly made by people who understood photography and human psychology. They weren’t just selling a product, they were selling a feeling.
And as someone who loves photography, that kind of thing is endlessly interesting. There’s a lot to study there. The lighting. The styling. The mood. All of it could easily inspire ideas for my own work.
So I’m genuinely grateful to that random creator on Instagram who mentioned the Internet Archive this morning. What started as casual scrolling over coffee turned into discovering an entire world of old magazines, articles, and beautifully crafted advertisements.
Something tells me I’ll be spending a lot more time wandering through the Archive in the months ahead. And honestly, there are worse ways to lose an afternoon than flipping through the visual history of the past.
Feeling Invisible Online
For most of my life, loneliness has been a quiet companion. Not the dramatic, movie-scene kind where someone stares out a rain-soaked window with a violin playing somewhere off camera. Mine is more subtle than that. It’s the sort that sits politely in the corner of the room, nursing a drink, occasionally clearing its throat to remind me it’s still there.
I’m not especially close with most of my family, and over the years I haven’t managed to hold on to many friendships in the traditional sense. The friends I do have are scattered across the map like misplaced books. I see them every few years if the stars align. Mostly it’s the occasional text message, the digital equivalent of a wave across a crowded room. We all have our own lives, our own chaos, our own responsibilities pulling us in different directions. I know they care about me, and most of the time that knowledge is enough. It has to be.
Usually my loneliness hums quietly in the background, like an old refrigerator in the kitchen. You know it’s there, but you stop noticing the sound after a while. Other times, though, it decides to grab a megaphone and start shouting.
Lately it has been shouting.
Maybe it’s because my anxiety has been running at a full boil lately. When that happens, loneliness tends to get louder too, like they’re collaborating on some sort of unpleasant jazz improvisation in the back of my mind.
Strangely enough, one of the things that amplifies it the most is posting online.
I know that sounds ridiculous. Social media is supposed to be the opposite of loneliness, right? Endless connection, endless conversation, endless engagement. That’s the sales pitch anyway. But sometimes posting on Instagram, here, or on Patreon feels less like a conversation and more like dropping a message in a bottle into the Pacific Ocean and watching it disappear beneath the waves.
I put a lot of work into what I make. The photography, the writing, the stories behind it all. And often it feels like it vanishes into the digital ether without so much as a ripple. I’ll see other artists share their work and the comments roll in by the dozens. Conversations, encouragement, jokes, reactions. Meanwhile I post something and hear… silence.
Sure, people like my photos. The little heart icons show up faithfully. My website analytics tell me people are visiting, reading my blog, exploring the work. I even have 30 patrons supporting me on Patreon, which is something I’m genuinely grateful for.
But when I actually share something, when I put a piece of myself out there, it often feels like speaking into a canyon and waiting for an echo that never quite comes back.
To be clear, I’m not writing this to make anyone feel guilty about not commenting. That’s not the point of this at all. No one owes me their time, their words, or their attention.
The reason I’m saying it is because I’m trying to be honest about what this whole experience feels like.
I’m trying, in my own slightly chaotic, occasionally philosophical way, to show up online as a real human being instead of a polished brand. The internet is already overflowing with perfectly curated grids, carefully engineered captions, and people performing versions of themselves that look great under flattering lighting. I don’t have the energy for that kind of theater.
What I’m trying to offer instead is the unedited version of myself. The real thing. The flawed thing. The guy who overthinks everything, wanders around with a camera, writes long rambling essays about life, and occasionally feels like he’s broadcasting his thoughts to a distant galaxy.
Because if someone does comment on my work, I want it to happen naturally. Not because my Instagram grid looks immaculate, or because some algorithm decided one of my posts deserved to go viral, or because someone randomly stumbled across my website while looking for something else entirely.
I want it to happen because something I said or photographed made another human being pause for a moment and think, yeah… I know that feeling.
Because at the end of the day, that’s what all of this really is for. Not the likes. Not the algorithms. Not the numbers on a dashboard somewhere.
Just that small, quiet moment of recognition between two people.
And if that happens, even once in a while, the room feels a little less empty.
Photography Gatekeeping: Why Some Photographers Feel the Need to Guard the Gate
There are a lot of things in this world that I simply don’t understand.
Some of them are big, complicated questions that political scientists, historians, and late night talk show hosts will probably argue about for the next hundred years. For example, I will never understand why anyone voted for Donald Trump. That one alone could keep a panel of experts busy for decades.
I will also never understand why people argue with complete strangers on Facebook like they’re defending their doctoral thesis in the comments section of a blurry meme.
But one thing that really puzzles me is this strange human urge to decide who counts as a “real” fan of something.
You see it everywhere.
Someone casually mentions they like Star Wars, and almost immediately someone shows up to administer the loyalty exam.
“Oh yeah? If you’re a real Star Wars fan, name all the lightsaber colors and what each one means.”
Why?
Why do we do this?
Why can’t someone just enjoy a thing without having to pass some kind of pop quiz designed by the self-appointed High Council of Nerd Credentials?
I saw a perfect example of this recently while scrolling through Instagram. A street photographer was walking through New York City filming an IG reel. As he passed a man on the sidewalk, the guy casually said, almost like a drive-by insult:
“Real photographers shoot with film.”
And I remember thinking… what a strange thing to say to someone.
Why do we feel the need to build these little fences around our hobbies? Why do we put up gates and then stand there deciding who’s allowed in and who isn’t? What exactly do we gain from that?
I’ve never understood it.
Maybe that’s partly because of how I got started in photography about ten years ago.
Back then I knew two things for certain. First, I didn’t know very much about photography. Second, I really wanted to learn how to take great photos.
The problem was that I didn’t personally know any great photographers. I didn’t have a mentor or a teacher showing me the ropes. So I did what a lot of people did at the time. I joined a few photography groups on Facebook.
For a while I just watched the conversations. People sharing photos, talking about cameras, arguing about technique. It seemed like a place where someone like me might actually learn something.
Eventually I got brave enough to post a few of my own photos.
Now, to be clear, I wasn’t under any illusion that they were great. They weren’t. They were amateur at best. But I wanted to get better, and the only way to do that was to ask people who knew more than I did.
So I posted the photos and asked if anyone had advice on how I could improve.
I didn’t get advice.
What I got instead were hundreds of comments telling me how terrible my photos were. People telling me I should sell my camera gear and quit photography altogether. That I wasn’t an artist. That I would never amount to anything.
It got so bad that eventually the owner of the Facebook group stepped in and told people to back off. But by that point the damage had already been done.
So I left the group.
But here’s the thing. Instead of quitting photography like those commenters suggested, I did the exact opposite. I decided I was going to prove them wrong.
For the last ten years I’ve practiced constantly. I’ve studied photography, experimented with different styles, made mistakes, learned from them, and kept going.
And today, if I’m being completely honest, I would say I’m equal to, if not better that, many of the photographers who gave me grief back then.
Not because I’m some kind of prodigy.
Just because I didn’t stop.
What’s strange, though, is that ten years later I still see the same behavior in photography communities. Gatekeeping knowledge. Mocking beginners. Acting like jerks toward anyone who hasn’t been doing it as long as they have.
And I still don’t understand it.
Why do we deliberately create this us versus them mentality? Why do we separate ourselves into little tribes just so we can feel superior to someone else?
It’s toxic. And honestly, it needs to stop.
So if you’re reading this, I want to offer a small challenge.
This week, find someone who is just starting out at something. Photography, writing, music, anything. And instead of testing them or criticizing them just for being new, try lifting them up.
Encourage them. Share something you’ve learned. Help them improve.
Because every single one of us started out not knowing what we were doing.
And the world would probably be a much better place if we spent less time guarding the gate… and more time holding it open for the next person.
Leaving the Mormon Church Taught Me to Laugh at 666
All of us carry pieces of our childhood around like loose change in a pocket. It doesn’t matter where you grew up or what flavor of chaos you were handed early on. Something sticks. It sneaks into your humor, your preferences, the way you interpret the world at 11:47 p.m. while half-watching television and pretending you’re not doom-scrolling.
Those early influences tend to show up in strange little ways. Mine usually surface as small, harmless acts of rebellion. Nothing dramatic. No tattoos in ancient languages I can’t translate. Just tiny, private jokes with my former life.
Last night I was watching a rerun of The Golden Girls, because sometimes Blanche and Dorothy are the only theologians I trust, and scrolling Threads. I came across someone proudly explaining that they never let the number of accounts they follow dip above or below 666. It must remain perfectly balanced. The aesthetic of damnation, curated.
I laughed.
See, I grew up Mormon. And if you didn’t know, Mormons have a very… active relationship with The Devil. Not in a vague, medieval painting kind of way. More like a regular cast member. Lucifer is the main character in the Mormon temple film. He’s the explanation for bad choices. He’s the whisper behind every questionable decision. Leave the church? Satan. Drink coffee? Satan. Feel skeptical? Definitely Satan.
It’s impressive, honestly. The man never takes a day off.
I left the church years ago, and with distance comes clarity, and a decent sense of humor about it all. But when you grow up hearing about “the adversary” as often as other kids hear about Santa, you end up with a weird relationship to things like the number 666.
So naturally, I opened Instagram to check how many accounts I follow.
1,274.
A perfectly boring number. Spiritually neutral. Not even mildly ominous.
For a split second I thought, There’s no way I can trim that down to 666. That would require focus. Discipline. A spreadsheet and maybe a minor existential crisis.
But I started scrolling anyway.
And here’s the surprising part: it was ridiculously easy.
Accounts that hadn’t posted in a year. Brands I don’t care about anymore. Aesthetic phases I’ve outgrown. People I don’t remember meeting. Influencers who once felt essential and now feel like background noise in a crowded airport.
Unfollow. Unfollow. Unfollow.
Somewhere along the way, it stopped being a joke and started feeling… clean. Like clearing out a closet and realizing half of what you owned was just habit. My feed started to feel more like me and less like an accidental museum of former interests.
And then, somehow, I hit 666.
Exactly.
I stared at it for a second, waiting for my phone to overheat or a thunderclap to roll in from nowhere. Nothing happened. No sulfur. No dramatic music. Just my profile quietly displaying the most feared number of my childhood.
Will it stay that way? Of course not. I’ll discover a new photographer. I’ll follow a bakery I’ll never visit. It’ll drift. But for now, I’m enjoying it.
Not because I worship chaos. Not because I’m trying to be edgy. But because there’s something deeply satisfying about taking a symbol that once carried so much weight and treating it like what it is, a number on a screen.
And if somewhere, someone from my old ward happens to see it and feels a brief, dramatic gasp forming in their chest?
Well.
Consider it my tiny, harmless love letter to the kid I used to be, terrified of devils, now amused by algorithms.
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Our Bedtime Audiobook Ritual
Our Bedtime Audiobook Ritual
When Leslie and I first got together almost ten years ago, we started a simple bedtime ritual. We’d climb into bed, she’d get comfortable, look over at me, and say, “Tell me a story.”
Not a fairy tale. Not something made up. Just… a story from my life.
She said it helped her fall asleep, and for a while, I had plenty to work with. Stories from my childhood. Hiking through the mountains. Weird, surreal moments from my time as a Mormon missionary. Random adventures from Geek and Gamer Fitness. Little memories I hadn’t thought about in years suddenly found new life in the dark. For a couple of years, I was a one-man audiobook, and honestly, I loved it.
Eventually, though, I started running out of material. Or at least, I ran out of stories that didn’t require charts, footnotes, or emotional disclaimers. So I suggested audiobooks. And just like that, we fell into a new ritual that’s lasted the better part of eight years.
We’ve listened to The Dresden Files, The Iron Druid Chronicles, Lockwood & Co., The Hobbit, and so many others—some of them so many times they feel like old friends quietly telling us goodnight.
But choosing the next audiobook is serious business in our house. There are rules.
First, it has to be something we’ve already read or heard. New stories are dangerous. They keep us awake, listening intently, suddenly caring far too much about fictional people when we should be unconscious.
Second, the narrator’s voice matters. A lot. Some voices are soothing. Some are… aggressively motivational. We need calm, steady, and gentle. Not “rise and grind,” but “it’s okay, you can sleep now.”
Third, absolutely no dramatic sound effects. Nothing ruins sleep faster than being jolted awake by sudden music, explosions, or gunshots. That’s not ambiance, that’s betrayal.
So we cycle through long, familiar series and usually drift off pretty quickly.
Last night, though, we needed something fresh. I picked Ready Player One, read by
Wil Wheaton. It’s always been a favorite of mine, probably because I grew up in the 80s and still carry a deep love for arcades, mixtapes, and questionable fashion choices.
Every time I revisit this book, one idea sticks with me: the way each character has their own digital space. A personal site where they keep their favorite music, movies, thoughts, art, all of it. One centralized place that’s fully, completely theirs.
And every time, I think… why didn’t we build that?
I remember when Facebook was new, and I honestly believed that’s what it would become, a digital home. A place for your photos, your thoughts, your favorite things. Instead, we ended up scattered across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and a dozen other platforms, all owned by companies that profit from our attention, harvest our data, and decide what we see and when we see it.
It’s kind of bleak, when you step back and look at it.
But I still have hope. More people are building personal websites again. More folks are stepping back from social media, being thoughtful about where they share their photos and art, and reclaiming a sense of ownership over their work.
Maybe, slowly, we’re finding our way back. Back to having one small place on the internet that feels like home. A little digital corner that belongs to us, no algorithms attached.
And honestly? That sounds like a pretty good bedtime story.
A Creative Photography Collaboration: Six Years of Friendship, Art, and Beautiful Chaos
There are people who drift into your life like weather systems, sudden, unexpected, and impossible to ignore, and then there are people who arrive as if they’ve always been there, simply waiting for you to catch up. The second kind are rare. They feel less like coincidence and more like inevitability. Two mismatched puzzle pieces discovering, with mild surprise, that they fit.
That’s Maeve.
Sometimes this connection shows up as family, sometimes as romance, and sometimes — in the best possible plot twist, it arrives disguised as friendship. The kind of friendship where you don’t need armor. No masks. No posturing. Just honest conversation, shared silence, ridiculous laughter, and the quiet relief of knowing you’re safe being exactly who you are.
Maeve has been that person for me for six years now.
We met, as all modern legends do, on TikTok, back when I was running the Creepy Guy Hotline, a strange little corner of the internet where humor, empathy, and mild chaos intersected. Even before we met in person, there was a creative electricity between us, a shared wavelength that didn’t require much translation. We just… got it. Got each other.
When 2020 finally loosened its grip on the world, I drove from Orlando to Tampa to meet Maeve face-to-face for the first time and shoot together. I was vibrating with excitement. I had triple-checked my gear, meticulously packed everything, and felt thoroughly prepared, which is, of course, when the universe decided to humble me.
Mid-unpack, I realized I was missing a critical piece of equipment. Without it, most of my lighting setup was effectively decorative. The only functional light I had was a powerful flashlight usually reserved for rummaging through gear bags and a single RGB panel light. In short: not ideal. I was mortified.
Maeve, naturally, smiled.
Not a stressed smile. Not a polite one. A genuine, grounding, “we’ve got this” smile. And with that, we adapted. We improvised. We leaned into limitation and turned it into atmosphere. What followed was a shoot full of experimentation, play, and creative problem-solving, and somehow, against all logic, we created images that remain some of my favorites to this day.
Since then, we’ve built something steady and rare. A friendship anchored in support, honesty, and mutual belief. We’ve stood beside each other through illness, surgeries, exhaustion, and self-doubt. We’ve celebrated wins, mourned losses, held each other accountable, and reminded one another who we are when the world tried to blur the edges.
And through it all, we’ve made art.
Fine art nudes. Boudoir. Bold, unflinching portraits. Soft moments. Powerful ones. Images that tell stories and hold emotion. Every shoot feels less like work and more like collaboration in its purest form, two creative minds chasing something honest and beautiful.
It is, without question, a privilege to know Maeve. To work with her. To create alongside her. And today, as we celebrate her birthday, I find myself overwhelmingly grateful that this strange, winding path brought her into my life.
So here’s to Maeve, to her brilliance, her resilience, her kindness, and her creative fire. Here’s to six years of friendship, countless images, and many more adventures still waiting in the wings.
Happy Birthday, Maeve. May this year bring you light, laughter, and just enough chaos to keep things interesting. 🎂✨
Emotional Vulnerability in Relationships
Emotional Vulnerability in Relationships
At the start of 2026, I made a simple decision: I was going to start posting more of my photography to Reddit. Not with a master plan, not with spreadsheets and content calendars, just show up once a day and throw my work into the wild to see what happened.
What happened surprised me.
In a month and a half, I saw more engagement and more real human interaction than I got on Instagram during all of 2025. Which feels backwards. Instagram used to be the place for photographers. Now it feels like a shopping mall where everyone’s yelling and no one’s listening. Social media is losing its magic, and people are starting to realize that growing on any Meta platform now is like trying to plant flowers in concrete. You can try, but the odds are not in your favor.
But the real surprise wasn’t the numbers. It was my inbox.
I started getting messages from husbands, careful, hesitant messages, from men who wanted their wives to do a boudoir shoot but were afraid something might happen during the session. Afraid of boundaries being crossed. Afraid of discomfort. Afraid of opening doors they weren’t sure they could close.
I wrote about this last week, but I want to come at it from a different angle.
A photoshoot should feel safe. Always. But so should a relationship. And I’ve been shocked by how many people don’t feel emotionally safe with their own partners. Not unsafe in a dramatic sense, but in the quiet, everyday way that makes honesty feel risky. The kind of unsafe that teaches you to swallow your feelings and call it peace.
Now, I’m no saint. I carry my own collection of anxieties, neatly stacked like old moving boxes I never quite unpacked. I’ve dealt with anxiety most of my life. I take medication. I see a therapist every week. Most of the time, that’s enough to keep me steady.
But for the last month, my anxiety has been loud.
The last time it was this bad, I was going through a divorce, closing down a business, and moving to a new state with a woman I wasn’t even sure I wanted to keep dating. That level of chaos earns its anxiety. This time? Nothing is falling apart. No disasters. No major life upheavals. And yet, some days, just breathing feels like work.
For a long time, I didn’t talk about any of this. My ex-wife used to publicly mock me for being depressed, and that kind of thing teaches you fast. So I learned to keep it to myself. To deal with it quietly. To not burden anyone else with my internal storms.
But that’s not how I want to live anymore.
So I’m trying to be more open. Talking with Leslie. Letting a few trusted people see the parts of me that aren’t polished or easy. Admitting that sometimes I’m not okay. Not because it magically fixes anything, it doesn’t, but because learning to be vulnerable feels like learning how to breathe again after holding your breath for years.
And that circles me right back to those messages from Reddit.
To the men wishing their wives would do a boudoir shoot: be honest with her. Be vulnerable with her. Not because you want a photoshoot, but because real intimacy grows out of honesty. Out of trust. Out of being brave enough to show your cards instead of always keeping them close to your chest.
Your relationship will get better because of it.
And if it doesn’t, if honesty breaks it, then it was already breaking. And you deserve a relationship where you can be fully yourself, not just the carefully edited version.
Trust me.
I’ve tried it the other way.
Stone Mountain Reflections
Stone Mountain Reflections
It’s funny how memory stretches things. Childhood recollection is a funhouse mirror, bending scale and perspective until everything feels monumental. Maybe things only seem bigger because we were smaller, but when I dig through the mental shoebox of my early years, the world feels oversized. Trees were taller. Distances were longer. Hills were mountains. And Stone Mountain, in my memory, was a towering slab of granite that could casually swallow a child whole.
I was in single digit age territory when my family visited Stone Mountain Park in Georgia, and I remember the mountain being enormous, overwhelming, and just a little bit terrifying. I was convinced that one wrong step would send me tumbling into oblivion. Gravity felt personal back then.
Fast forward a few decades and a professional conference later, and I found myself back at Stone Mountain. This time, armed with adult knees, a conference badge, and a slightly more rational relationship with gravity. On the first day, we rode the lift to the top, and that was when reality gently reminded me that nostalgia has a flair for exaggeration.
Stone Mountain is… fine. It exists. But the towering, epic beast from my childhood memories had somehow been reduced to a rather unimpressive boulder. Setting aside the deeply uncomfortable and racist confederate carving on its face, the mountain itself is, aesthetically speaking, not great. It is basically a giant rock plopped in the middle of an otherwise pleasant forest. The carving does nothing to improve this situation. If anything, it makes it worse.
At the summit, I expected sweeping views and that familiar sense of awe you get when you reach the top of something. Instead, I felt mildly underwhelmed. I have stood on some truly beautiful peaks, hiking parts of the Appalachian Trail, wandering through Philmont Scout Ranch, climbing Abernathy Peak in Washington State. Stone Mountain does not belong in that company. Compared to those places, it felt small, ordinary, and oddly anticlimactic.
Every morning brought a different sky. The colors and fog spilled across the water and slowly pulled the day into existence. Those moments alone made the trip worthwhile. I photographed them digitally and also on 35mm film, because some scenes deserve to be slowed down and trusted to chemistry and patience. I cannot wait to see how those frames turn out.
So that was my week. A gentle collision between nostalgia and reality. A reminder that memory is a generous editor. A mountain that failed to live up to its legend, and a sunrise that quietly stole the show.
And yes, I still think we should stop building parks that celebrate confederate generals. But no one asked me.
Nothing Happens on a Photoshoot
Nothing Happens on a Photoshoot
I got this message today and it stuck with me. The kind that keeps bouncing around your head long after you’ve read it, like a loose screw rattling around a subway car. So instead of letting it fester, I want to talk about it.
Let’s clear something up right out of the gate.
Nothing happens on a photoshoot. Not like that. Photoshoots aren’t sexy. They’re work. They’re lights and cables and someone asking you to stand right there no the other right. They’re too hot or too cold, with at least three extra people watching and one person about to trip over a tripod. The vibe is closer to hour ten on a film set than anything remotely romantic. So let’s kill that fantasy now. Nothing is going to happen.
And even if the opportunity magically appeared, no professional photographer I know would cross that line. Ever. That line isn’t blurry. It’s bright, obvious, and surrounded by common sense. You don’t step over it.
That said, I’ve heard real horror stories. Not internet rumors. Real people. People I know. Real experiences.
One model told me about a photographer she’d never met who wanted to shoot alone, deep in the woods. No assistants. No plan. Just trust me, which is never a sentence that should end there.
Another showed up for what she thought was a normal shoot and was suddenly asked to use adult toys on camera. No warning. No consent. Just that awful moment when you realize you’re in a situation you didn’t agree to.
Another was pressured into sex by a photographer who abused his position and her trust.
This should never happen. Not once. And while it’s true that when this kind of behavior comes to light, word spreads fast and those photographers get shut out of the community, that doesn’t undo the damage for the person who was put in harm’s way.
So here’s what actually matters.
Bring a safety buddy. Always. Any photographer who has a problem with that is not someone you should work with full stop. If you ask a photographer not to share an image, they should respect that without pushing back. If they argue, that’s your answer. If they post something and you ask for it to come down for any reason and they make a fuss, they’ve just disqualified themselves from future work with you.
Yes, bad photographers exist. Every industry has its share of them. But most photographers are good people who understand that trust is everything in this line of work, and boundaries are not optional.
Be careful. Ask questions. Ask for references. Talk to other models and clients. Ask how the experience actually felt, not just how the photos turned out.
Because at the end of the day, your safety and your comfort aren’t bonuses or perks. They’re the baseline. The bare minimum. The most important part of any photoshoot.
When there is safety, and trust, beautiful images and art can come from photoshoots. These images of Natalie were taken on just such a shoot, and I am grateful for the trust Natalie and I showed each other while working together.
