Behind the Scenes
Journal · Volume IX · Updated Quarterly
Field Notes & Behind‑the‑Lines
A sparse, personal log of work that falls between commissions — long-form essays from the road, production notebooks, and the occasional dispatch from the studio in Brooklyn. Published when there is something worth saying, not on a content calendar.
Featured Essay · No. 47
Three Days at the Salt Flats with the Nike Field Team
A production dispatch from a 14-hour shoot in 38°C heat, chasing a single frame that says "run" without ever showing a runner. Notes on light, talent, and the moment the Profoto Pro-11 packed it in.
We arrived at the flats at 4:11 a.m. — eleven minutes ahead of the natural light call, which the producer had calculated from a NOAA spreadsheet and the GPS coordinates of our second assistant's rental car. The heat would not peak until two, but the air was already doing that thing where the horizon becomes a suggestion rather than a line. I shot the first frame into the dark, knowing it would be deleted before sunset, just to hear the shutter and to remind the crew that I had not yet begun.
Read the full essay →
Recent Entries
Personal Project
Hoh Rainforest, Four Mornings, One Roll of Portra 400
Studio Notes
On the Phase One IQ4, Five Years In
Field Writing
A Cover in 47 Minutes: The Fast Company Chef
Studio Notes
Rebuilding the Studio in 2021, and What We'd Do Differently
Personal Project
Sunday Nights at the Bar Next Door
The cover is a single frame, but it is never one frame. It is the four hundred frames we did not choose, the seven hours of light we did not get, and the one second where the subject forgot the camera was in the room.— From "What 38 Covers Taught Me About Directing Talent," Journal No. 46 · October 2024
Browse by Thread
Four recurring currents run through the journal. Each one is a different angle on the same working life.
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I.
Personal Projects
Long-form photographic essays shot between commissions — forests, kitchens, the salt flats, the jazz club on the corner. The work I make when nobody is paying me, which is the work that usually pays me back.
12 entries -
II.
Behind the Scenes
Production logs and on-set notes from cover shoots and campaigns — what the press release leaves out, from casting calls to the moment the strobe pack gives up.
19 entries -
III.
Field Writing
Dispatches from the road, the airport, the rental car, the diner at 3 a.m. — short essays on the geography of working assignments and the cities that frame them.
14 entries -
IV.
Studio Notes
Equipment, post-production, retouching workflow, archive tagging, and the small mechanical decisions that make a 1,400 sq ft daylight studio in Brooklyn run like a clock.
8 entries
From the Journal to the Studio
If the writing held your attention, the work will hold it longer.
The same eye that writes the journal ships 142 campaigns a year for clients including Nike, Patagonia, The New Yorker, and Ace Hotel Group. One point of contact, in-house production from casting through retouch, and a 48-hour preview turn for editorial — the way a 14-year studio should run.