2026 05 06
My new zine is now out and available! You can buy a copy here.
This image is one of the frames contained within. It was a lot of fun to put together, but in typical me fashion, I’m already having regrets about various decisions I made. That said, the positives far outweight the negatives and I feel good about the project overall. Mainly, I’m excited to move on to the next printed photozine, which I’m already at work on. Over the span of the first two book projects, I feel like I’ve come a long way in learning by doing. Really, that’s been the aim all along. I’m a strong believer that there simply aren’t things you really know until you do them.
Logistically, this book has been taking up too much of my time lately, so I’m excited to be mostly over the hump. I’m nearly done packaging up all the pre-orders and am very thankful to everyone who did purchase the book prior to its release. Because of y’all, the zine is mostly paid off already, which has become my goal on any of these projects. While I don’t expect to make money doing these things (and any profits I do encounter will go straight back into Realm), I also can’t continue to do them if they are losing money — and I’m really hoping to be able to continue making them!
Really, I just find it fascinating to learn how vital pre-sales are to most book releases. I had no idea until I started dabbling in books myself, but it’s really kind of the whole ballgame.
I’ll continue to drop some images both that made the cut and didn’t make the cut in the coming days. Tons more to share from my Illinois Wanderings, as well.
2026 04 15
As I get more into printing and doing photo shows myself, I often think of this guy who does a lot of really cool stuff here in Chicago. If you’re not already familiar, you should check out his shop All-Star Press… and then give the humble lil shop I’ve set up a peek. The second link isn’t my own art (although I do have 2 photos available in there!), but it’s the building my studio is situated in and I’m doing all of the printing and much of the web stuff involved. Down the line, I hope to also set up a print shop of sorts on the Realm site, as well, to compliment all of the books and shows we are doing. Too many projects!!
2026 04 09
Another outtake from my upcoming zine (now on preorder!). I still quite like this shot of Sean, one of the ever-changing cast of faces I’ve met through the years while based out of the Kimball Arts Center. The building has changed and is changing in ways which seemingly parallel my own career evolution. I won’t get into all that here today, however, to sum it up: commerce outcompetes art. That said, I’ve been really enjoying doing my own photography lately and (currently) very motivated to find a way to make it work financially, as well. Time will tell if I can crack it.
2026 04 07
This was a spur-of-the-moment attempt at something while passing through Quincy last year on an Ill Wandering outing. Alec, a bank employee, was nice enough to pose for me as he was leaving work. There’s definitely something here, but not sure my vision fully translated in the final image. Mainly, I’m obsessed with the church spire sticking out from Alec’s head and wandered around town capturing it from every angle imaginable. If you’d like to see a dozen more, let me know! Thanks to Alec for being a good sport and entertaining my artistic whims.
2026 03 13
I made a very similar photo of my sister 20+ years ago on my first digital camera. It was one of the first images I made that got me really excited about making images.
Today I came across the below quote while cleaning up my desktop and it reminded me that I’ve been slacking on posting quotes around here.
“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
— C.S. Lewis
2026 03 03
I’m not spending as much time on this here blog lately, mostly because I’ve been nonstop busy with other stuff. Two of those stuffs are related to this above snapshop of Joe!
First of all, the image was made in the first half of 2023, which is where I’ve been pulling images for my second zine project dubbed Daily Bread. That zine is nearing design completion and (hopefully) heading to the printer this week for dummy copy production. I’m aiming for a late April release. In the meantime, I will be posting more images made from that time in my life on the blog here.
Secondly, Joe was just featured on my other other blog, everyoneisfamous.com, along with his partner Maggie. I clearly don’t have time for all this blogging, but I do the best I can. While I miss hanging out here with myself every single day, it’s also been nice to focus on other… stuff.
2026 02 06: Louisville b/w
This is an iphone snap (edited to look less like one). I also made some images with my “real camera,” however, those files always take longer to get to. Maybe I need to change my workflow; maybe I’m just lazy and the phone is too convenient to compete with. Whatever the case, I’ve decided to be less picky about which images I choose to share around here. Previously, I was pretty firm on only using shots made from my Ricoh. These days, I’m using that camera a bit less than I had been, and instead shooting more with the phone again (yuck!) along with my Canon R5. The real camera. That I hope to swap for a Fuji GFX one of these days… but that’s enough gear talk for the week.
2026 01 07: Keep it 100
In attempting to make good on one of my year-end resolutions (see: 2025 12 30), I’ve got my “Keep it 100” portraits sessions on offer from January 8-13. Since I opened up bookings so last minute, I’m going to have a very hard time of getting people to sign up, which will likely spiral me back into a pessimistic outlook on the whole thing. Ho hum. If you want to book a session, you can do so here; and if you use the code KEEP-IT-100, you’ll unlock the insanely low price of $100 for an individual session.