12.1.24Another Year, Another Christmas PhotoFor the last few years, we’ve gone to Overlook Lodge in Pleasant Ridge for their Christmas-themed drink event. Our group of friends finds a date that works for all of us, and we make a reservation to seat all of us together. It’s about an hour long, the drinks are good, and the whole thing ends up pushing me over the line for getting into the Christmas spirit.This year, Ronny and Sydney came with us. Ronny hates Christmas, but he primarily wanted to join because the rest of us went. At the end of our time slot, and to cap the event with a grand finale, a Christmas montage played on the TVs behind the bar, and light foam “snowed” from the ceiling. This frame is from that moment.

12.2.24Architectural Photos For CAMCAM asked me to document their ground level for use in a media press release. I’d been in this space once before last month during the annual CAM Gala, but it was nice to get to spend some quality time carefully and methodically capturing the space.This time of year is sometimes challenging because of holiday decor. While it would’ve been acceptable to photograph the space as-is, I thought it made more sense to de-clutter each shot and prevent shackling the images to a specific season. Overall, I’m glad I did because the shots ended up being evergreen.

12.3.24It’s 5:30 PMLooks more like 9 PM, though.

12.4.24Winter’s Night EventI photographed the Winter’s Night Founder’s Event at the museum this evening. Second job at CAM this week. They did a great job dressing the place up with lights, sculptures, and performers for attendees.Here’s a photo of Rich Sofranko taking a photo for other attendees on one of their phones. Rich is a photographer himself, so they were in good hands. I swooped in behind him to get my own shot after taking this photo; thanks for setting this up for me, Rich.

12.5.24Volkshaus OpeningVolkshaus (123 E McMicken Ave) had its grand opening this evening. I was there to capture images for 8K Construction.

12.6.24Portait WorkI photographed Karissa (marketing material for Kroger).

12.7.24Ground Level OpeningAfter photographing the ground level for CAM this week, I returned to the space this morning to document their formal grand opening ceremony and discovered a very fun photo opportunity by accident.One of the main galleries has an enormous LED screen (I think it’s over 400 inches). It’s so large, I was able to make this portrait of CAM Director Cameron Kitchin speaking at the podium with nothing but the screen as a background.

12.8.24Tree’s UpBetter late than never.

12.9.24Colombian MagnetAshley was in Colombia all last week for work. When she came home, she brought with her this cute little magnet she bought in Bogota. Since I got new studio lights the other day, and having not taken a single photo all day for this project, I decided to set up a backdrop and make something simple.Bright orange construction paper seemed to fit the aesthetic of the magnet best.

12.10.24Return to the Mercantile LibraryThe Mercantile Library reopened after a year-long renovation. The biggest change to the library is the fully functional second floor, which is made accessible by way of the new grand staircase (pictured).I’ve spent countless hours working from this library over the last decade. It’s been a great resource and place to hunker down with assignments. I plan to work from here more often now that it’s open again. Some of my favorite images I’ve ever taken were done in this space, and seeing all the parts I loved preserved while adding to it in a thoughtful way warms my heart. Despite being so old, this place feels totally reenergized and ready to serve for another century.

12.11.24Liminal Space PenguinRookwood Properties held their annual holiday party at the Zoo this year. The party included two animal encounters: one with a tortoise and another with a penguin.A few people showed interest in the tortoise, but the penguin was a huge hit. She waddled around the room trying to find enough personal space to feel comfortable. I’m not sure she ever found it despite everyone keeping an appropriate distance. The keeper with her said she’d never been in that room before, so her visible curiosity and erratic route was probably a result of being overstimulated. At one point, she left the room entirely and went into the hall for a moment for what I assume was to take a penguin breather. (Relateable.)

12.12.24Do Not DisturbWhile photographing a house for a listing, this precious angel was sleeping soundly in a chair. Thankfully, she hopped up there on the cushion after I’d already finished in that room. I couldn’t forgive myself if I had to disturb her.

Past ExpirationThe antique mall in Alexandria has several rows of glass cases with locked-up items. A lot of it is jewelry or baseball cards, glass tchotchkes of significance, pins and medals, and a variety of other higher-priced fare. Honestly, it’s the least interesting aisle in the building to me because I prefer the challenge of visually sorting through unobscured junk like a sieve scooping up a pile of river dirt looking for a nugget of precious metal. That’s the fun of going to antique malls; it’s an exercise that sometimes turns up something neat. The cases are all fruit, no labor.These vintage bottles were locked up. The Coke bottle didn’t have a tag that I could see, but after a quick online search, it looks like it may be from the ‘70s. Coke is so old, they were doing throwback promos 50 years ago.

12.14.24Rubber Band-CuriousTravis and Allie held a Christmas movie night at their place. Jack and Jonas were very interested in a rubber band for a substantial portion of the evening.

12.15.24Haunted HardwareI’m building something in my basement and had to make a quick run to the store. When I pulled up, the moon was ominously peeking through the clouds, evoking an October mood despite the season.

12.16.24CheersMario gave my regular order (latte with four shots of espresso) an unofficial name. Feels nice to have my own drink! I love this shop so much.

12.17.24The PointeThis house on Riverside Drive in Covington is apparently named ‘The Pointe.’ I wish I knew its history, but Googling only results in a few articles detailing a property line dispute. It sits at the confluence of the Licking River and Ohio River on the Covington side, across the street from the statue of Chief Little Turtle and John James Audubon.The owners are planning to put it on the market in the coming months, so I photographed the interior for the listing. Even though we had a lovely day of sunshine, I thought getting a few exteriors at night would make sense.

12.18.24The BenchFor years, I’ve had an office on the second floor where I did all my photography-based work. As I’ve grown in my career, though, I’ve acquired additional gear that has started collecting on other floors, namely the finished basement. A cart, a couple of hard cases for my commonly used kit, studio lights, backdrops, c-stands, different sized bags, straps, etc. Lugging all of this stuff up to the office doesn’t make sense since it’s regularly going back out the door through the basement, so I’ve been storing it in a tidy corner despite the limited space.I never liked that I didn’t have all of it consolidated. It felt messy and spread out even though I did my best to keep it contained. I value intentionality and defined spaces, and keeping half my stuff in a corner never felt good despite it being necessary.So, I built a bench with storage beneath to keep everything that’s not a camera in the same place. It’s still in roughly the same corner, but now it’s organized in an intentional way. The bench, with loads of good lighting, offers a large surface area to work on the computer, clean sensors and camera bodies, and compile all the small tools required for specific photo-related tasks. It provides all the same duties and functionality as my workshop around the corner minus the power tools and saw dust.When I need to build a load out for a job, I throw the case up on the bench directly under the overhead light and put together what I need. When I come home, I pop the memory card(s) out of the camera, slot the batteries on their chargers, and take only the photos upstairs to my office for processing. Everything is streamlined, organized, and optimized for my workflow.

12.19.24A Not-Quite-Perfect CircleThe river was so still, the reflection of this wounded bridge resulted in almost a perfect circle.

12.20.24A Very Barbershop ChristmasTravis from Bellevue Barbershop asked if I would volunteer as the photographer for a photo-with-Santa event he was putting on. I’ve always kind of wanted to do silly work like this since it’s outside what I normally do, so I agreed.I set up two lights: one with a soft box pointed directly at the bench to light the subjects, and another pointed at the ceiling on the other side to give the rest of the room a little bump in ambient illumination. I didn’t worry too much about composition since A) directing children I don’t know is out of my league, B) as a one-person operation, I didn’t have much time to do anything else beyond taking the photo and immediately processing it, and C) these were ultimately free photos.Using the bench for Santa to sit on was a good idea because it was heavy enough to not move, allowing a simple tripod-mounted camera to free up my hands and generate a consistent look for all photos. I tethered straight to my laptop through Lightroom, setup up an auto-edit routine so every image would look the same after it was taken, and texted/Airdropped every image right after they were taken to the parents. The system was good enough for one person to manage, and I think I did a decent job overall.We used the barbershop as the backdrop, naturally. I don’t want to post photos of people’s children, so the photo above is from the lighting and export test right before the first kids went up to get their photos taken.

12.21.24A Real Big BoySince all the Frisch’s are closing down, I think it’s appropriate to divulge a Bellevue secret: the Loyal Burger at the Loyal Cafe is essentially a Super Big Boy with tomato added. For less than $8, it’s as much of a steal as it is an enormous, no-frills burger.The Loyal Cafe has been open for years, but I only recently started going. The interior looks like it hasn’t changed in 40 years, the bar always seems to be stocked with the same regulars, they don’t serve a drop of craft beer, and this time capsule of a bar and restaurant has food priced like its 2004 despite being so good.

12.22.24Cat-SittingWhile Travis and Allie are on holiday out west, I’m going to be watching their kitties, Jack and Jonas. I plan to visit their house twice daily to check in on them and show them some love. Since their food and water bowls are auto-filled, all I have to do is pet and play with them (aside from litterbox duties).It’s especially fun for me because I genuinely love cats. We can’t have one of our own due to Ashley’s allergies, so this will be a good chance to get some quality kitty time in without making her feel sick.

12.23.24Cat-Sitting II: The SequelNot a lot going on this week. I haven’t worked in days due to the holiday season, and I’m not doing much else besides building some shelves in the basement, watching the cats, and taking it easy. Here’s Jonas sitting on my lap. Jack is a little freaked out by my being there, but he’ll come around.

12.24.24TourBox ThoughtsI’ve been using a programmable custom controller called TourBox Elite to edit photos in both Lightroom and Photoshop over the last week and a half. This device features a series of oddly shaped buttons, knobs, dials, and wheels to provide a tactile approach with haptic feedback to common tasks within each system. I use the TourBox software to map specific key commands to the TourBox’s array of inputs (like zoom in/out to the dial, or SHIFT to the button on the side), ideally matching tasks and tools to what feels most intuitive to the user. Some buttons can modify the use case for others, such as pressing up on the D-pad to bring up a drop down that the scroll wheel can navigate while the dial modifies the selected values.All of this to say: the TourBox is a physical shortcut device that maps common tasks and tools entirely to the left hand, effectively speeding up edit time and making everything easier in theory. Of course, there is a learning curve to using controllers like this, and I spent hours figuring out what to map and where to put those commands, but I think I’ve reached a point where it’s approaching second nature. I genuinely look forward to using it when in Lightroom, specifically. The ease of switching between iMac and MacBook wirelessly is a big bonus, too. I got the translucent smoke black version because it felt it was more fun than the other colors. I’ll always have a soft spot for devices with semi-transparent shells.The only thing I wish it had was a small amount of onboard memory to store custom layouts. Sometimes I slightly tweak a button’s function while on my iMac and forget to export/import the updated profile so it’s mirrored on my MacBook. If the custom layout could be stored on the controller itself, that would solve this issue.Overall, I like this controller a lot, and I think it’s worth the price (it’s currently on sale for $201).

12.25.24Welcome to TasteMy niece got a grocery store playset for Christmas. In addition to plastic bananas and eggs, it came with fake goods emblazoned with bad, generic labels for things like pasta and cereal. My favorite, though, was this juice box that had a hilariously awful translation: “The nourishment is abundant, and feel a class stick! Welcome to taste!”

12.26.24RummikubChelsea and Vince came over for Indian takeout, coconut daiquiris, and an evening of Rummikub where we all managed to win a round.I put my phone on the floor and used my Apple Watch to take a photo through the glass table.

12.27.24Lounge Scootin’A person on a small motorized vehicle scoots past a strip club in Newport, KY one evening.

12.28.24Season’s GreetingsWhile walking down Vine Street, a large RV towing a flatbed trailer rolled toward me blasting music at a loud volume. I worried it was going to be some nut job with a bad politcal opinion trying to get attention, but it ended up being a friendly guy handing out boxed menorahs and spreading Chanukah cheer. We made eye contact and he yelled to me over the music “are you Jewish?” I replied that I wasn’t, and he offered me a pamphlet about Judiasm after posing for this photo.I don’t follow any religion, so I must admit that I’m ignorant to the core of the message, but on the surface, he seemed pleasant enough. I didn’t end up reading the literature he gave me. With the Christmas tree and Bengals fervor downtown, the contrast felt notable.

12.29.24ReflectionThe year is almost over, and as the deluge of end-of-year posts from friends and acquaintances hit the internet, I find myself paralyzed from joining them. 2024 wasn’t the worst year on a personal level, but it certainly wasn’t the best. There were some pleasant highs and some truly awful lows.The good first: my nephew was born, and we had a lovely trip to Maine. I deepened my working relationship with local architects, non-profits, and museums. We had loads of dinner and drink parties with our friends. Steve’s live show at the Woodward was a blast. I started working part-time as an assistant in a proper studio. Driving to see a White Sox game with Mike was super fun. Erica and Steve got engaged. I built some useful stuff for our house. Photographing Shepard Fairey and experiencing Blink 2024 was very enjoyable. And this year I did more event work than ever before.Now, the bad: the election is obviously the centerpiece of what’s wrong with this year. I had to go back to therapy after years of surviving on my own to battle anxiety and depression. I’m embarrassed about picking up smoking full-time again due to stress after years of being clean. I lost my biggest repeat client. My business didn’t make as much money this year due to losing that client. I’m the fattest and grossest I’ve ever felt in my life. I still don’t feel like I’ve recovered from the pandemic professionally and emotionally. Everything is so expensive now, and the future of this country and our planet has never looked worse.Hopefully next year’s end-of-year post will be brighter, though considering what’s ahead, I’m not holding my breath.

12.30.24Allen ArtEverything seemingly comes with an Allen wrench these days. I save them all in a small box because I never know when I’ll need a specific size for a future project. Our door handle needed adjusting today, so I busted out the collection to find the right size. Afterward, I made a little spread for fun.

12.31.24Five YearsFive years of the Daily Photo Project in the books. Originally a Twitter thread (RIP), the project found its permanent home here on this site 11 months after it began. Making an intentional photograph, regardless of its level of quality, has been a satisfying exercise in consistency and structure. Its unintentional benefit as a journal of life has also been rewarding; I’ve consulted the archive countless times to remember when I did something by finding the photo related to it.This photo was taken right after the stroke of midnight, but I’m counting it as the final image of 2024. We had a handful of friends over for a chill NYE party in our house that included dinner, dessert, and a variety of celebratory drinks. The cocktails were cheap, we didn’t have to fight for a booth at a crowded bar, our chances of getting sick were greatly reduced, no one got obnoxiously drunk in public, and my dedicated photo wall (pictured) ended up being more of a hit than I expected.I’m glad this is the image that marks five full years. Having so many friends in one image to cap off half a decade is a fitting tribute. Though the Daily Photo Project is a deeply personal endeavor, I find I like it best when the subject matter is about other people. A tailored portrait, a low-key hang, an adventure, a group photo, a candid, an impromptu capture of someone at an event—anything that involves people.And speaking of people, thank you to everyone who reads this when it updates. I don’t know how many of you there are, and I’m always under the assumption that no one actually reads this, but if you are out there, I want to pass along my appreciation for your interest.Here’s to five more years.