No worries.

As life goes on I appreciate the simple things more and more.
Things like a morning routine, a walk with the dog, a cup of coffee, or time spent together.
It’s all the extra shit that makes life stressful.
Worry has no place in my life and although it is not okay to avoid things we need to manage the bullshit.
I guess thats all I really have on my mind today.
Manage the bullshit in your life and the good shit will fall in line.
Don’t let it stress you out just handle it.
This mindset really helps me appreciate the good things in my life.

TIME EFFORT CONSISTENCY

My baby girl got sick last weekend with a case of Kennel Cough. (Dog Bronchitis)

It was pretty nerve-racking hearing her cough so hard she was puking and that it was so consistent, happening every few minutes.

We tried to let her sleep it off because every emergency vet we spoke to had an 8 hour or more wait time.

Then at 12:30 it had gotten to the point where none of us could sleep because Rowie wasn't doing well with the sickness.

We then took her to the ER and waited for about 4 hours for the doctor to see her.

Thankfully she is making a full recovery and she can finally play again.

We had to let her rest a bit for a week and she hated that lol even though running around the apartment would make her cough she didn't care because all she wanted to do was play.

Thinking back to getting this dog I somewhat expecting to be madly in love with her from the day I got her but that was kind of half true.

At first, I was in love with her undeniable cuteness and how fragile she was but after the first 2 weeks and very little sleep all I could think was what the fuck did I get myself into?

Having a dog is no easy task especially when you're working from home, training her 3 times a day, and still have to get them the proper exercise they need.

Eventually over time though you grow to love the dog an insane amount like it's your own child and they seem to work their way into your family.

All the training sessions start to pay off and if you missed one it feels like your day is off not just your dogs.

Raising a dog has been one of the most fruitful things I've ever done and although it has been tough at times that discomfort has made me grow.

I think passions work in a very similar way.

It's scary and uncomfortable to put yourself out there and to show people you suck at something.

Whether that is art, dance, photos, sports, etc. having a dog is the same thing.

If you are not passionate about your relationship with your dog it shows like a sore thumb the same goes for photography.

It takes daily effort not talent.

If you're shit at either the only formula you need to get better at is TIME, EFFORT, and CONSISTENCY.

This is the only way for the cream to float to the top.

As soon as you wake up.

Sometime you forget about what drives you.
What makes you want to move and achieve more.
It’s easy to get distracted but there are ways to help reel your focus in.
For myself healthy decisions tend to lead to better decisions.
Specifically in the form of routine.
The first thing ingested mentally or physically should always be something healthy. 

Not instagram as soon as you wake up, and not an unhealthy breakfast.
This is part of the reason I’ve been feeling off for a few months now.
( I apologize if it seems like I’m always off or in a funk in this blog but this is where I come when I have a problem that I need to work out.)

Finally I feel like the tide is coming in and my motivation is starting to swing the other way now.
I’ve started to work out again and I’m making better decisions for myself than I was before.
Paying attention to my morning routine has really helped me over the past few days.
What do you do as soon as you wake up?

The secret sauce.

Our puppy Rowie is now 4 months old which means we’ve had her for 2 months.
Man I don’t know if I would get a puppy that is 8 weeks old again.
Maybe next time I’ll wait until their 12 weeks or older.
The first 2 weeks I was really questioning if I had made the right decision.
They literally pee and poop every 15 minutes when they’re awake and at first the training was pretty frustrating.
More than anything I realized how much patience, consistency, and research is required to be a decent dog owner.
I studied for 2 months before we got Rowie and I am still studying everyday.
The crazy thing is even if you study your heart out none of it makes sense until you have a dog right in front of you and everything you studied isn’t working.
This is where patience kicks in.
I was more frustrated at myself than I was at Rowie when we first started training together.
Then as days progressed I could see the change in her behavior slowly but surely.
Now training is more fun than ever before.

The reason I bring this up is because photography had a similar trajectory for me.
When I was younger I wanted to make great photos but my hands, my eyes, and my skills could only make shit photos.
It takes time and no matter what person promises you an instant fix or preset to your photo work I can promise you the true solution is time and repetition.
Having a good dog, being good at photography, or any other activity all comes down to one thing KNOWING HOW TO PRACTICE.
There are very few secrets to these kinds of things.
I am amazed with this dog everyday and last night as I was laying in bed I found another excuse to practice.

Over the next few months I’m going to take one photo of Rowie everyday and one video.
Whether I post that on here or just print them and make a family album it’s still practice and a great way to cherish these memories.

With love,
Atticus




6.jpg

This might be a weird topic to drum up in my head but it’s one that really had me puzzled this morning.
As I looked at these photos of my brothers (mainly Walter because Zac didn’t jump in the water) I thought of all the times I met people that hated their siblings as I sit here and love my siblings so much.
Now don’t get me wrong there is a time when “Loyalty” is a bullshit disguise for dependency and a blood-sucking energy vampire of a family's resources.
We all have one of those cousins, brothers, aunts, or uncles.
Luckily for myself, one of those has never been one of my siblings and the bond us brother share is unspeakable.
Maybe it’s due to growing up without a father and us all being boys as well.
A commonality like that creates a type of camaraderie that only comes once in a lifetime.
I’m very blessed in this aspect of my life.
I learned early what it means to be loyal and I learned early what it means to forgive (They are really one and the same if you ask me.)

Imagine being punched in the face by one of these guys and being forced to shake hands after, you’ll learn to forgive real fast.
For me, though my brothers always had my back, we always spent time together and challenged each other to do better than the next.

When thinking about these siblings I’ve met that hate each other and the grudges they hold I can’t help but think about my father’s killer.
What a weird feeling to have.
To grow up not having something yet still missing the presence of that thing you never had.
Yet I don’t hate the man that killed my father
I forgave him years ago.
If I didn’t I would have driven myself crazy.
That is what hate does, it drives us crazy because it is not an ill-founded feeling.

If someone disrupts your way of living how else are you supposed to feel?

I don’t have the answers to this but all I know is that forgiveness has always brought me closer to my brothers and days like this are the ones that make me realize just how lucky I am.



Looking for Inspiration.

Whenever I leave NY for the weekend I love staying at my brother's house. His house is somewhat secluded and is just a short walking distance to a coffee shop, restaurants, and a biking trail. It's a place where I can shut off my mind and just walk and shoot pictures. There's less pressure here and whenever I visit my brothers it feels like I'm going home to my childhood house even though that house is no longer ours. I'm grateful for family time and in the simplest way possible I like taking photos of these times. When your taking photos it's easy to feel like you are not present not apart of the moment but when I'm home it never feels that way. 

It feels like I'm in between my work and personal life and that grey area is a place I'm happy to sit in. 

If you're into any art whether that's photos or painting, or recording sound etc. I would try to mix it in with your family time. 

Some of the most powerful work I've ever seen has been of people's friends (ex. Ryan Mcginely, Nan Golden) and families Christopher Anderson, and a friend of mine Jimmy O'donnell who photographed the last days of his father's life dying of cancer in his families living room. 

These photos touched me not only because he had the composure to photograph this tragic event but because he kept shooting after his father passed. The one image that touched me the most was his sisters and his mother crying at the funeral. 

Imagine the looks you'd get shooting photos at a funeral? 

Yet he didn't care because this was his family and his passion and those images will live in my head for the rest of my life because of how they touched me. 

There are also more subtle ways to photograph your personal life like Christopher Anderson's work. It's hard to justify using words to describe someone's images because words do them no justice but some of his photo books on his family usually show his family in beautiful natural light. 

They usually depict the mundane and the often overlooked parts of life that are the beautiful things we remember in the end. 

My last example here which is a totally different angle is Ryan Pfluger. 

His relationship with his father was complicated as a young adult so he decided to photograph himself with his father. 

From what I've read on this project Ryan was taking these photographs to reconstruct his relationship with his father. 

https://cargocollective.com/ryanpfluger/Not-Without-My-Father


If you're looking for inspiration for your creations you're missing it. 

It's all around you in the people you spend the most time with or in the things you love doing most. 

Night walk.

Let’s be honest no one moves to Nyc for the weather.
We’re here for the people, the opportunities, the constant bustle.
Nyc doesn’t sleep that’s a fact but with so much of the city in a choke hold from covid this place that once seemed like a post card is being tested in ways it hasn’t been tested before.
Still something about this city and its grittiness feels immortal like a cockroach.
Nyc can’t be stopped and if it can survive 9-11 it damn sure can survive covid.

I remember when I first moved here I thought this city was going to be easy….boy was I wrong.
The only thing easy about Ny is getting a chop cheese at the bodega and even that can be challenging at times.
No matter what you are doing here this is almost always a hoop you have to jump through and that is especially apparent now with Covid.

One thing that sits in stark contrast to where I grew up in Connecticut (Not Greenwhich!) is that very few people have parking here.
So if you shovel out your car and a plow truck plows it back in you’re going to have to break out the shovel again.
When I had a car I hated this but that’s part of the price you pay to live here.

Seeing all the cars terribly stuck yesterday I was inspired to take a walk to get some photos before bed.
Shortly after I started my flash died so I only got a few photos but I guess it wouldn’t be New York if something didn’t go as planned.

How to get out of a creative funk.

Inspiration weans and wanes like the tide and throughout 2020 I have never seen the tide so low for so long.
On a regular day, it is rare for me to not get ideas from everyday life but this year hit me differently I felt my drive and inspiration slipping away.
I’ve been in creative ruts before this is nothing new but what is new is how long this one lasted.
It seemed to go on for the entirety of 2020.
Normally when these lulls happen it only lasts a few weeks maybe a month.

So how are artists supposed to get through these times.
I’ve heard other people say “Oh I’m taking a break I’m going to focus on other things for now.”
I get it we all have other passions besides our chosen medium but stepping away from photography has never gotten me out of a creative funk, it has only left itself there for me to pick it up when I returned.

The only way I’ve ever gotten through a lack of inspiration is by shooting through it.
That means picking up the camera contacting new people and making new work.
That’s when the ideas start flowing when you’re in the thick of it.
Not when your behind your screen planning a shoot based on somebody else’s images.
MAKE YOUR OWN IMAGES.

If you’re a photographer out there odds are you’ve contemplated assisting? Maybe.
I did for a year and although there was some good in it ultimately it was not for me.
I was making more money shooting and was actually getting paid on time v.s. getting paid 5 months later by a millionaire photographer who changed his assistance faster than his underwear.
At this time in my life every shoot I was assisting with filled me with endless amounts of inspiration.
I would see the grand set designs or even the simple ones and wonder how I would have photographed the models there.
It didn’t seem to be that way for the other photo assistants, instead, they seemed to be in a rut.
I could understand why with the payments always being late and some of the photographers treating us like shit but then again I couldn’t understand it.
We weren’t working on a fucking emergency room floor or curing cancer so why was everyone always so flat and uninspired?

Needless to say, I left that environment but there was one thing another photo assistant said to me before I left that will stick with me as the ultimate way to not do something for the rest of my life.
I asked him why he was never taking photos as his work was amazing before he had started assisting.
His reply was “I’m trying to learn everything I can over the next seven years and then when I’m done I’ll start shooting again.”
In my head, all I could think was “Jesus Christ if Michael Jordan had that mindset he’d never had made a free throw.”

The lesson I learned from all of this. ^^^^^^^^

Do not wait to be inspired.
Just make and make and make again and if you don’t like the direction it is going in, correct to a new course and make again.

Below is a sneak peek at a new project I am working on with an Olympic fencer who grew up in Nyc.
It’s not done yet but it’s the first shoot that has really filled me with a burning passion for photography again and it has since lead me to get out and shoot so much more.

All the best,
Atticus

Rowie baby.

Nothing is easy lately but the important thing is always making sure you are getting the important things done.
To start with a positive I can’t believe how blessed I am to have this little maniac of a puppy in my life.
Back in November when she was just born I bought her as a Christmas for my girlfriend Meg and we had to wait till January 15th to get her.
We are both so in love with her but boy puppies have a lot of energy.

It definitely makes life a bit more difficult having to take care of something else but when you hear those little grones when your puppy is waking up, or you get to have playtime on your lunch break, well those moments are priceless.

Besides the amazingly fruitful and challenging task of raising a puppy, I’m also going through a bunch of transitions in my life.
My roommate is moving to Minneapolis, I’m moving in with my girlfriend, NYC is more dead now than ever, and I’m trying to raise our puppy all at once.
It’s such a weird mix of ups and downs and in this mix of it all, I’m trying to remind myself of what’s important.
My health, my family, my work, and finding time for the things I love to do most.
Stressing too much never makes a situation better and neither does giving in to your vices.

Matter of fact I’ll say that giving in to your vices only compounds a stressful situation into a worse one.

I know this blog is super obvious but we all need a little reminder sometimes to take a step away from the stress and to take notice of what we are grateful for in our lives.

Double down.

When I look back at some of my past blogs I notice that I work through so many of my own problems here.
Obviously, this blog has fewer views than my Instagram but it feels more like a private platform as if the people that come here to read these keep it to themselves.
In a sense, this is an extension of my journaling, and this year I’ve told myself I am going to focus on what I am doing right instead of always aiming to fix my problems.

With this new aim for 2021 I not only want to focus on those things I am doing well I want to double down on them and I think you should too.
I feel so much more grateful for what I have in my life when I practice a more positive version of awareness.

I’m most grateful for my community right now.
I had no work pretty much all of 2020 until the fall hit and it seemed like the work has been constant since.
When everything changed and I began to work again things became better than they were before the quarantine.
I wondered how this happened and after asking the clients almost every job was from a recommendation.

This is strictly because of the community I have in Nyc and it is one that I am forever grateful for.
A big part of that community has come from supporting other businesses and even some from working at the tattoo shop featured below.
The name Atelier Eva pretty much means Eva’s Artist workshop and it doesn’t feel at all like a tattoo shop.
It’s more of an artist’s boutique for lack of better words.
Each piece in the shop flows from design to functionality.
It’s lined with concrete stucco walls and warmed with wooden accents and benches throughout the space.
Every single thing in the shop was handpicked by the owner and head artist who sees the space as an artist collective rather than a tattoo shop.
Also to note most of the furniture and lighting is all from other local artists or artists from her home country of Turkey.

This is what supporting your community looks like.
The shop has an immediate connection with all the artists who work there as well as the artists who made the fixtures that sit in the space.
I’m grateful to be around people I can learn from each day and I’m excited to double down on my community building this year because we all need it more than ever.

All the best,
Atticus


No rules.

I didn’t take too many photos this holiday season.
Probably because this is my first year without a car in a long time. (living in NYC you don’t really need one.)
It’s a little hard to get someone to drive you when the sun is rising and that’s typically my favorite time to shoot.
Luckily I was able to photograph some of my favorite moments from this year’s holiday.

Over the past few years, my brother Walter and I have made it a point to go swimming each Christmas morning.
It’s become a tradition I look forward to.
Whether there is ice we have to chop through or like this year just cold as the water it’s an essential part of what makes Christmas fun for us.

The second thing you’ll in these photos below is our trip to New Hampshire for New Years’.
Although this was the first year I spent it outside of the city and without many of my friends it was one of the best new years I’ve ever had.
Looking back. at the past few New Year’s Eve parties we have they seem quite boring in comparison.

This is something I’ve felt about the holidays for a long time.
Why the fuck are they so boring.
You see other peoples family’s having sing-alongs, playing games, and giving each other gifts and I always envied that when I was around my high school years.

I think around the end of college our family holidays. started to get really fun.
The important thing here is that you make up the rules for your holidays.
Once I realized this everything changed for me.
It’s not always easy to get everyone to join in on the fun but fuck it if they don’t want to play trampoline basketball then let them be bored.

This New Year was different than any other I’ve ever had.
Instead of dressing up nice, spending a ton of money, and standing in a room talking to people.
We bought nerf guns and had a nerf war, dressed however we wanted, and before the ball dropped we all shared our favorite memories from 2020.
It just felt perfect.

When it comes to holidays if you want to stick to just meeting up having dinner then so be it do what makes you happy.
Just be aware that you make the rules for your own holidays and if you want to have an egg toss on Christmas then toss your heart out.


Why you should practice daily.

I’m going to be posting on here regularly now and boy does it feel good.
When I first posted blogs as a 365 project I thought I would be done as soon as I hit 365.
Shortly after I finished I felt like something was missing after I stopped posting so I continued sporadically over the past 2 years but still that wasn’t enough for me.
It still feels like something is missing from my life when I don’t do this and the same goes for keeping a daily journal.
Without these two things, I notice that my photographic work suffers because of this.

The reason is that practice is everything.
I can’t stress that enough.
In all the times I’ve had success the one common denominator has always consistent practice 6 months prior.

The same goes for working out if you work out super hard for a week you won't see much in terms of results.
But if you work out for 30 minutes a day for 6 months you will see much more success at the end of that process.

All of the good in your life is a direct result of what you were doing 6 months ago.
The crazy part for me here is how the simplest actions compound over time.
For example, I used to shoot and edit every day after I worked a manual labor job.
I let that go for a while because photography is my job now but it is still my passion and the simple act of taking a few pictures a day is everything to me.

This is the simple practice or actions I am talking about.
You don’t need to kill yourself to get good at something you just need to have some consistency with it.

Now onto the pictures, you see below.

If you’ve ever watched the UFC odds are you’ve heard of Royce Gracie.
He’s the first winner in the history of the sport and his family invented Brazilian Jui Jitsu.
Below is Royce’s nephew Rayron Gracie, he just turned 19 years and he’s dominating the Jui Jitsu world right now.
Rayron’s father was a fighter too as well as his uncles and cousins.
While we were shooting these photos he told me about his father’s passing when he was around 5 years old and how that fuels him to be the best in his sport to carry on his family’s legacy.

I didn’t tell him about my father’s passing but boy did his story pull at my heartstrings.

I remember as a boy hearing the stories of how great of an athlete my dad was and it drove me so much to try and be like him.
That same sentiment still fuels me in my photography not wanting to waste the life my parents gave to me.

I think one thing that Rayron and myself both have in common is that we realize that life is really short.
You can either wake up with a passion and work your balls off at what you love or you can waste your life.
I myself waste a lot of time sitting behind a computer and this year I’m trying to change that so I can spend more time behind a lens meeting amazing people as I did for this series.

Thanks for reading this.

With love,
Atticus




Continuing.

Regardless of your feelings on the police and regardless of your feelings on black lives matters we should all care about our fellow human beings.
This has been a year that I find difficult to describe with words.
2020 has been liberating, destructive, progressive, insightful, inspiring, and a complete fuck you to any plans you may have had.
It has forced us all to adapt to the times or face drowning with the ship.
One thing I hope drowns with 2020 is HATRED and how the media uses it for views but its affects on the American people are far too damaging to justify this practice.

Further division is a problem.

Guess what, you can be for Black lives matter and be pro-police at the same time.
Being in the middle doesn’t enrage anyone enough to get views that’s why no one talks about it.
You can acknowledge a corrupt system but still be for law and order and you can acknowledge the plight of black Americans people too.

As much as I didn’t want to make this political I feel that I have to in order to earn the right to grieve my fathers absence.
Luckily for myself I decided to change my sentiment this year and I chose to celebrate my fathers life rather than to morn it.
He’s been gone for 28 years now and although we never met it felt like each year at his memorial we buried him again and again.

What a strange feeling it was but noticing this self deprecating pattern I’m choosing to see the good these days instead of always seeing the problems.

There were too many problems with 2020 and I just don’t give a fuck about that anymore.

One rule my mother said to my entire life was treat people the way you want to be treated.
I’ve since modified that to fit my life and it’s a rule I now live by.

BE GOOD TO YOUR NEIGHBORS.

It’s not hard to hold the door for someone, it’s not hard to keep your stereo at level 6 instead of at level 10.
It’s not hard to put your shopping cart back. (Seriously don’t be that person.)
It’s not hard to treat your neighbor with respect no matter their skin color.
It can be difficult to be nice to cops especially if one is being a dick but at the end of the day we’re all human.
We are all somebody’s brother, son, daughter, mother, etc.

Empathy and a connection to complete strangers is one of the most powerful things you’ll ever feel in life.

Don’t let anger blind you because if you are easily enraged you are easily controlled.
That goes for the die hard republicans and the die hard liberals.
Fuck if you are die hard in anything other than knitting please seek to understand the other side.

It’s always interesting for me to take photos of cops on this day each year because I am an outsider but for this day I’m always welcomed with open arms.
With that here are some photos from my fathers memorial this year.
It was cut short due to Covid but with my fathers closest childhood friends we managed to celebrate the legacy my father left on his home town and it was an emotional day.

With love,
Atticus

Florida

Although the world is seemingly in shambles Covid has really unveiled the true importance of so many things in our lives.
It has reminded me of something I learned on my second cross country trip a few years back.
The previous summer (2016) I had driven from Brooklyn to California and back.
This year I had planned to drive up from NYC to Canada and to travel west to road trip a part of the world I hadn’t yet seen.
Well my plans were foiled on the first day.
I got up to the Canadian border after seeing Niagara falls and they wouldn’t let me in after searching my car and finding all of my camera gear.
They thought I was traveling there to work in Canada illegally but really I was just vacationing because I like taking photos.

This wrench was really a huge downer for me so I went to sleep at a camp ground and it was way over my budget to put a tent up.
I then went to a Walmart and slept in my car that night.

It was interesting but I had done it before.
Then after about 3 days on the road and coming up with a totally new route to see I stopped in Iowa for the night.
As I had some whiskey by the fire and was writing in my journal I had the most overwhelming feeling that family is really all that matters.
Wether you consider that by blood or by bond who you spend your time with is one of the most fulfilling parts of life.

When you are locked in your apartment for 6 months it becomes even more apparent how much you can miss the ones you love the most.

Covid also exposed how much of a dump NYC is to me without it’s people.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again no one lives in NYC for the weather, the garbage smells, or the rats.
We’re all here to connect with other. people.
That’s exactly what this trip to Florida was for me.
Spending time with the people I love the most and it was a much needed refresher for sure.

I can’t wait to go back and whoop my Step Dad’s ass in a dance competition again.



Find your mission.

When I first started this blog I was writing in my journal every morning and looking back a lot of those writings were letters to the future children I hope to one day have.
They were a series of lessons I was learning at the time and although I felt corny thinking that one day my kids would pick these up and be able to avoid the mistakes that I once made it felt good doing it.
Little did I know I was writing those lessons down for myself so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.

This awareness of seeing life written down has also helped me recognize the actions I was taking when times were going really good.

For example.

Whenever I am shooting personal work often.
Whenever I am putting myself out there and attending events and speaking with my contemporaries.
Whenever I have a morning routine.
When I eat healthy and stay active.
Whenever I am brutally honest.
Whenever I practice gratitude.
Being value driven and mission oriented.

Those simple things done consistently enough over time have always lead to my most successful moments in life.
Whenever work and life was going really. well for me I knew it was because of the work I was doing 8 months before.
This is why I firmly believe in running a marathon in your work and not a sprint.
This means saying no sometimes because you know a client is trying to take advantage of you.
It also means swallowing your pride when someone is a dick to you and just being the bigger person.
(Trust me you will see this person again in your career years down the road and you never know what position they’ll hold.)

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from this journaling is being mission oriented.
It something I don’t do enough but when I have done it I have achieved my goals.
For example when I started this blog my missions was to do 365 blogs.
One for each day of the year.
It took me like 3 years to get it done but when I did it I felt like a million bucks.

Now thinking about this blog and where it stands today I don’t really have a mission.
That’s something I need to think about over the next few weeks but I can’t help to think of how much more valuable this blog would be for people if I had a purpose to it.
If my mission was to teach you about yoga, to spread love, or to inspire people into baking it would be much easier to digest this blog but for right now it’s just me sharing my thoughts each morning.

I guess I like too many things to pick just one lol.
Anyways I think we all need to think about our mission in life a little more.
What means the most to us and how can we share that joy with other people?

Hopefully by the next time I make a post I can have a more concrete mission for this blog.

All the best,
Atticus

Competition is everything.

Growing up playing sports I always trained myself to be competitive.
There are only so many spots available on the field so you need to be better than everyone standing next to you.
To me this doesn’t exist in photography and that is what I find so freeing about being in this field.
Yet there are some people who think they’re still on the basketball court so they compete with their counterparts and they keep secrets and they don’t collaborate.

Comparing yourself to others is a lonely way to grow in the creative process.
I’ve also found that this tactic doesn’t work.

Before I get to what does work I’m going to explain to another mistake I’m still trying to overcome.

When you’re competing against yourself it’s important to not fall into the trap of only seeing problems.
Eg. Say you’re running a race and you come in second every time and your biggest issue are the straight aways but you’re killing everyone else on the hills.
It’s important to keep your focus on what you are doing well at and doubling down on those skills.
Beating yourself up over what you aren’t doing well at is terrible for your mental health.

The central theme of my journaling this week has been all about what was I doing when things were going well in my life v.s. what was I doing when things weren’t going so well.
The most reoccurring answer for when times were going bad was beating myself up over meaningless things.
When things were going well I had a routine, I held myself to small tasks daily, I created work often, and I put myself out to the world.

Back to the point of competition.
One of my clients is a tattoo artist (Eva) in Brooklyn and she’s one of the most talented giving and inspirational people I’ve ever met.
She is from Turkey so there is a bit of a language barrier but what she may not say in words in always evident in her actions.
With all the amazing tattoo artists in the city you’d think why would you join such a competitive market?
That’s not the way she looks at NYC for tattooing she looks at it as the place with the biggest tattoo community and most amount of clients in the world.
Through Eva’s actions I have seen how she has built a community around her new shop in Brooklyn, Ny.
She hired local artists to build the furniture, she hired her friends who’s work is very similar to work there.
If Eva was competitive in her tattooing I don’t think she would have the shop, or the community that she has in Brooklyn.

Competition has an important place in the world but for myself and for so many other artists you will go further with a tribe than you will alone.

Scrap Photo Journal

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I can do to practice photography in the physical world lately.
How can I step away from the digital world and into the tangible with my work?

This is so important because when you work on a screen your images can look so tiny and all the great detail they posses can easily be missed.
You also don’t really get to see all of your work as a whole when it’s on the screen…yes you can make a contact sheet but seeing 150 images that you want to edit down to 12 images on a 15” screen sucks.
The other issue and I’d say it’s the biggest one is Instagram.
It becomes very distracting to curate your images when you are getting instant feedback via likes in seconds.
This is why working with prints blocks out other’s opinions and strengthens your photographic voice. (Confidence)

Below I ordered prints off amazon. (Yeah they sell printing services too.)
I made these prints via contact sheets and when the images came in they were far too small for my normal photo journal, I could hardly see anything in them but I decided to lay them out and glue them into another journal just for the memories.

What ended up happening was that I glued them into this journal and didn’t look at them for 5 months and when I re-opened it I actually grew a liking for what I had laid out.

So even if you are never going to use the photos you put in your photo journal there is so much to appreciate and to learn from this process.

Don’t let “likes” distract you from your vision.

Finding Nature in NYC. 

There is something so specific about what nature does to your quality of living.
It's a visceral feeling that brings back the childhood memories of dirt stains on my jeans and growing up in the wooded suburbs of New England.
Seven years ago I moved to New York and I always needed breaks from this amazing city.
Although I crave the smell of the streets when I am gone for too long it never soothed me like the smell of a pine tree or fresh-cut grass.
It wasn't until I started to take advantage of the nature New York City has to offer that this place truly became home.

Now it's August of 2020 and my love for New York has never been put to the test harder than it has been over these past 6 months.  
The quarantine hit everyone hard but for those of us without a back yard, it hit especially hard, and finally, Central Park is accessible again.
One thing that I think is unique about New York is that all of our public parks are shared.
That every time you go to central park for a walk, or a picnic you know that whatever you do will affect the experience for the person visiting after you.
This is why it's so important to clean up after yourself and your friends or even strangers who may have left some trash in the spot you’re picnicking in.
(It's not cool to litter.)

I am prideful in New Yorkers' ability to be there for one another when people are in need.
There are countless examples of people helping others whether it's a blind person who needs help crossing the street or a mother carrying her child and stroller out of the subway someone is always there to lend a hand.
That's why it pains me to see litter in any New York City park.

As humans, I think it's important to have space where you can connect with your environment.  Nature was something I thought I was losing when I moved to New York but that's not true at all.
Whether it's Rockaway Beach and surfing or Central park picnics there is Nature here if you're willing to look for it.
Thanks to Klean Kanteen I feel a bit easier that wherever I go in this city I won't have to leave any trash behind me.