🪻

 

Very simply, to be a photographer is to be in the business of noticing. Connecting the dots. Problem solving is a given… the challenge is that the problems never stay the same.

 

Making personal work in the tidepools this season has helped me reclaim my attention and taught me how to really look. My intertidal endeavors have provided the perfect setting in which to experiment with new lenses, lights, camera bodies, techniques, and more. They've also helped me connect with nature and appreciate the little things you'd miss if you blinked. I've been holding a lot of this work close to the vest, but am excited to share more soon.

 

It's been a busy season of shoots, travel and community events. I spent a whirlwind 72 hours in San Francisco for Catchlight. I visited the Internet Archive. I took part in a roundtable with The Margin after publishing a story on insulating the poverty gap (link to the story below). Back home, Seattle Photo Book Club hosted two meetups, and we have more in the works. 

 

A colleague recently shared an apt saying: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in”. I loved this and wanted to share it here. This sentiment applies to so much happening in the world right now.

 

Sound Transit Community Portraits

II you've stopped by the new Overlake or Judkins Park link stations in Seattle, you may have seen some new work I made in collaboration with the great folks at Sound Transit, blown up on the walls. I'm a big fan of public transit and had so much fun on this two-day shoot.

 

My compulsion to run for my camera every time I see a rainbow has paid off! An image snapped from my deck last year ended up on the cover of Seattle Met's spring issue. Inside, you'll also find a 10-page feature I shot and pitched in the summer of 2025 about the annual West Seattle Garage Sale Day.

 

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is amble toward my trusty Breville Barista Express. I was thrilled to get the call to photograph Priya Krishna's story on the secondhand market for La Marzocco machines. Here are some of my favorite outtakes that didn't make it into the story.

 

I met with Sarah Hill, a patient at ReStart, one of the nation's few residential treatment programs for digital overuse, for Kristen Stoller's story on Meta's recent crushing legal blow. The program treats tech addiction as a danger on the scale of alcohol or drug addiction.

 

I photographed Samantha Holloway, owner of the Seattle ice hockey team, Kraken, at the Kraken Complex in late May for Bloomberg.

 

I met with Microsoft veteran Babith Bhoopalan and his 16-year-old daughter, Thea, at their home for a story on something a lot of people are thinking about right now: the “AI-proof career”. Babith wrote a letter for Thea that spread across the internet. Initially interested in finance, she has since decided to pursue foreign relations after realizing that diplomacy can't be outsourced to robots.

 

I spent a couple minutes backstage at Town Hall with acclaimed picture book creators and lovely people Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett in May. After the shoot, I realized I had totally read I Want My Hat Back to a friend's kiddo in the last year! 

 

I hopped on the ferry to meet Colby College alum, acclaimed science writer with too many awards to count, and longtime producer for Bill Nye, Lynn Brunell, at her home on Bainbridge Island for a feature on her illustrious career. We spent the first hour of the shoot chatting over coffee and pastries in her kitchen. It’s special to walk away from a shoot feeling like you’ve made a new friend.

 

US Foods Magazine, Food Fanatics, sent me out to a couple restaurants in Seattle for a feature on the city's food scene. One of the spots was a true Seattle institution, Burgermaster. I had no problem roping my brother in to modeling for this one.

 

I hope you can take time to read Kate Raphael’s complex and thoughtful reporting on the incredibly difficult end-of-life situation the Lawson family found themselves in last year after a prolonged battle with dementia.

 

 

 

 

🎬 It's been a great year for going to the movies. I loved Backrooms and I Love Boosters.

 

📚 I love a good idiom and always joke that my favorite book is the copy of The Dictionary of Clichés I bought at Barnes & Noble in college. This reel had me in stitches (please forgive the idiom).

 

🎧 I've been blasting Harry Styles' new record Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally, as well as 800 Cherries and Julia Jacklin.

 

🎥 I watched The Perfect Neighbor, a documentary that consists primarily of police body-cam footage. Simple yet profoundly effective, this heart-wrenching doc floored me.