I turn sixty on Sunday, March 5th, 2028.
That date has been sitting quietly in the background for a while now. Not as a deadline, and not as a source of pressure—but as a point of clarity.
When I get there, I want to be able to walk into a gallery or approach a publisher and place a curated body of work on the table.
- Not a greatest-hits folder.
- Not a lifetime archive.
But finished work. Intentional work. Work that stands together and says something.
That’s the goal. Everything else is just noise.
Why constraint matters
From today, I have 113 weeks until that birthday.
Life will happen during that time. I’ll visit my daughter. I’ll take vacations. I’ll step away from photography when I need to. When you subtract those realities, what I’m left with is 105 working weeks.
So I’ve chosen a constraint:
- Three creative photo sessions per week.
- Not every day.
- Not endlessly.
Three intentional sessions where I show up, walk, observe, and work.
If I can make one publishable image per session, that gives me roughly 315 photographs over that span.
That number isn’t the goal—it’s just a way of understanding scale.
A serious portfolio doesn’t need hundreds of images; it requires 15 to 20 photographs that visually and emotionally belong together and tell a coherent story.
Which means, realistically, I only need two to four independent bodies of work to reach the place I want to be.
That’s not overwhelming.
It’s manageable—if I commit.
Commitment over coverage
I don’t believe strong work comes from shooting everything.
I believe it comes from commitment.
- Commitment to a way of seeing.
- Commitment to a field of view.
- Commitment to walking instead of rushing.
- Commitment to staying present long enough for something meaningful to emerge.
Most of my work has been built at street level, inside the rhythm of the city, with a wide lens and a deliberate pace.
- I walk.
- I observe.
- I wait.
And when something aligns—gesture, light, emotion—I press the shutter.
Not because something happened.
But because something meant something.
That distinction matters.
Why I’m documenting this publicly
I’ve started documenting this process on my YouTube channel—not as a highlight reel, and not as a tutorial series, but as an accountability project.
The channel follows the work as it actually happens:
- The missed frames
- The near-misses
- The edits that don’t survive
- And the rare moments when everything comes together
It’s about building portfolios instead of feeding algorithms.
If you’re interested in how long-form photographic work actually takes shape—how ideas evolve, stall, sharpen, or get abandoned altogether—you can watch the first video here:
The blog remains my home base. The YouTube channel is simply another place where the work can be examined out loud.
The only promise
I don’t know exactly what the final portfolios will look like yet.
I don’t know which projects will survive, or which ideas will quietly fall away.
But I do know this:
- If I show up consistently,
- if I walk the city honestly,
- and if I trust the process— The work will be there when I turn sixty.
That’s the commitment.
Three sessions a week.
105 weeks.
No noise.
Just the work.