I say this every year, but that doesn’t make it any less true… if you’ve played any part in my journey up to this point — THANK YOU. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’m so grateful to get to make pictures for a living and to be able to provide for my family in the process. If you’ve encouraged me, kept up with my work, shared my work with anyone, and especially if you’ve hired me along the way — thank you, thank you, thank you. 2023 was amazing but I can’t move on before sending all my love to the people who’ve helped me get here.

I know you shouldn’t be defined by what you do professionally, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to do what I do well and I’m very proud of the photos I made in 2023. I made a real effort in the last year or so to focus on projects that bring me the most joy - photographing people. As much as I still love making photos of spaces, food & beverage, and so many other things that I do regularly, I find myself most creatively fulfilled when I’m working with people. Preferably lots of them! I love collaboration and I think I make my best work with help from a bigger team. This year I was fortunate to be able to work with so many talented individuals, many of whom I had never worked with before, and I had a blast making all of these photos. Thank you for taking a moment to celebrate with me while looking back on a few of my favorite projects from 2023.

This project with Leading Hotels of the World was an absolute dream. It also was my favorite type of thing to work on - travel and vibes. Leading was looking to help their southern France properties attract more Summer travelers so we bounced between some really remarkable hotels documenting how special that part of the world really is. Obviously it wasn’t hard to make some great photos in coastal France but what was most fun to me was going back to my “run and gun” roots. We executed this shoot with an incredibly nimble team and that allowed us to really go with the flow and chase opportunities and lighting when we had them as opposed to the fun, but very large teams many of my sets this year had. I used lighting only on a few scenes and instead primarily worked with available light and amazing talent. This also was one of many projects I did this year that allowed me to shoot a lot of film in addition to my normal, digital work and that was so life-giving to me creatively. I can’t go back soon enough.

Photographed in Nice, St Tropez, Cannes, Provence and everywhere in-between in Southern France.

This is my second year working with Wheels Up and it’s hard not to feel giddy each time I step on set to help on these shoots. From shooting on a live tarmac, shooting while raised up in a cherry picker, flying to the Bahamas in a sea plane, and even building a studio in an airplane hangar these shoots are always so exciting. I also had the pleasure of hiring some dear friends as the talent for one of the projects, which made it even more fun. Huge thank you to the WU team for having me again.

Photographed in Philadelphia, Fort Lauderdale and Kamalame Cay.

The Hotel Chalet is a new hotel project in Chattanooga that was looking for some stylized lifestyle photos for their launch as they’re finishing their renovations and opening. Like so many other projects this year, I shot a mix of film and digital for these which made it even more fun to help bring a really strong creative vision to life. Thank you to everyone who helped make this project a reality - it turned out even better than I’d hoped.

I’ve worked fairly regularly with Anna and Nathan from Rifle Paper Co. for the last few years and every time I’m as excited as the last. They’re one of the things that make me most proud to live in Winter Park, and I have so much admiration for the company and culture they’ve built here. I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve done this together now but it’s at least enough that we now have a enjoyable rhythm and system to how we do things. Location jobs are so much fun but it’s nice scratching my studio itch - my first real photo gig back in 2012 was a studio gig and I love the pace and controlled nature of how the Rifle team likes to work in the studio.

Photographed in Winter Park.

Continuing the local work trend here… I was fortunate to start working with regional BBQ chain, Sonny’s, this year and it has quickly become one of my favorite teams to shoot with. As much as I love traveling and location work, I’m always extra excited to find more local clients value what I do. We covered a ton of ground in three shoot days together and I’m so proud of what we captured. “It takes a village” and these shoots had so many hands involved I wouldn’t even know where to begin to thank everyone but I can’t wait to do it again, y’all!

Photographed in Orlando.

Helium Creative was tasked with the branding and launch of two high-end residential developments in Pompano Beach from luxury hotel brands Waldorf Astoria and Rosewood and asked me to capture the stills alongside a really amazing video team. We worked with mostly available light and yet again, I was able to shoot both film and digital throughout our four days on this project. There were many times while out on the multi-million dollar yacht or while photographing the Ferrari and Rolls Royce that I thought to myself “I can’t believe I get to do this for work”. It also didn’t hurt that this was some of the most pro talent I’ve ever had the chance to work with and that made everything better. More of this, please.

Photographed in Pompano Beach.

I’ve been friends with Jeff from Ugmonk ever since the early Instagram days and it’s been such a pleasure to collaborate with him on so many different shoots over the years. I admire Jeff’s eye for design and functionality so much and I always look forward to playing a small part in whatever he has going on. I was in the Philadelphia area a few times this year and when Jeff asked if I’d come out to their new workshop and studio for the day to document a bit of a “day in the life” for Ugmonk I couldn’t pass it up.

Photographed in Downingtown.

Similar to Ugmonk, Counter are long-time friends of mine that also wanted me to come by and capture them in their natural, studio environment. I love the work Counter does, and spending a few hours seeing them in their element was really inspiring. I had such a good time hanging out and making these portraits and company culture images for them.

Photographed in Orlando.

When I was first brought down to help make photos for The Boca Raton I couldn’t have guessed that they would become one of my most frequent clients but it’s hard to imagine a better place to find yourself regularly. The Boca Raton just does everything well and I’ve been lucky enough to have a hand in photographing virtually every element of it’s five unique hotels, countless amenities, and to die for food and beverage outlets over our last three years working together.

Photographed in Boca Raton.

This was the second year of our lighting workshop with Sum+ Studios and this time we took things out west to Los Angeles. I wondered after the first year if we just struck gold and if the community element of the workshop was just a irreplicable cocktail of the place, the people, and everything coming together perfectly in Miami for us, but now having done this twice I’m so encouraged that yet again I left the weekend feeling so fulfilled and with a much larger creative community than I had before. Both times now the workshop feels more like Summer camp than a workshop. We all become so close and I love the environment that’s created through friendship while we’re with everyone. Huge hugs and kisses to everyone who trusted Caleb, Kirk, and me with their time and their resources and, in some ways, their careers.

We’re already working on workshop number three now, which will be sometime in the late Summer or early Fall of 2024. Sign up for my email list to stay in the know when we announce dates and info. I can’t take credit for all of these photos so thank you to Wes Ellis, Mitch Wiisanen, and Michael Tucker for taking many of these (hover for specific photo credit, where pertinent). This weekend workshop was the highlight of the year for me.

Photographed in Los Angeles.

OK, now for the best part … more than anything else, I’m grateful for another year of fun memories with my family. A good number of my work trips were flexible enough (and kind enough) to allow for me to bring along my family. This year had so many high points for me - between everyone tagging along on a work trip to Philadelphia, spending a month living in an epic house in Dumbo, getting away to Asheville for a bit with a bunch of family friends, going up to Tallahassee to watch our FSU Seminoles during their undefeated season, doing Thanksgiving with family in Atlanta, and finally spending the new year in Chattanooga with my entire family, we had such a fun year together. This year our littlest, August, turned two, Ansel turned six, and Harper turned ten. Ten! I love being a dad to them more than I can express, and I love doing it with Kimberly. This year also marked my and Kimberly’s eleven-year anniversary, which we celebrated in Boca Raton, with the whole lot of us! India, our golden retriever pup, turned five and is still my non-human soul-mate.

Photographed in Winter Park, Tallahassee, Boca Raton, Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, and Asheville.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you! Please feel free to share this, if you feel so inclined, and if you’d like to keep in touch, please sign up for my mailing list below. Extra special thank you to Chaz Russo for designing all of the title cards above (and also for doing the rest of my branding - hire him, he’s great). BTS video in the header WAY up top was done by a bevy of my favorite people while on set this year - Josiah Sampson, Colton Williams, Michael Margio, Kyle Delk, thank you for sharing with me to make this possible and an extra thank you to Kyle for editing it all together. All of my love to Matthew Barrios for assisting me throughout all of 2023. You killed it and I can always count on you to be such good help but an equally good time. Here’s to making even better work in 2024!