As the year draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on all the interesting jobs and people I’ve gotten to work with this year. 2023 has been a unique journey – one filled with incredible opportunities, challenges, and growth. As a professional photographer, I have been fortunate to work with a diverse array of businesses and universities, each with its own distinct story to tell.

If you are involved in the business side of things for any sort of big business, non profit, or educational institution, then annual reports are nothing new to you. The yearly publication — whether produced in digital or print (or both!) — is a showcase of your institution.

Universities and colleges have a lot on their plate when it comes time to select a new leader.

One of my newer clients — Chestnut Hill College — recently went through this exact process when their beloved president of thirty years retired. After a thorough search, CHC appointed Dr. William W. Latimer as their new president.

Branding can often feel like an vague term. The general idea is easy enough to grasp but when you dig down, it gets harder to wrap your head around. A lot of different things a business or organization or school does to stand out falls under the branding umbrella. One component of branding is photography, of course. But, just within photography, what you choose to photograph and how you organize and deploy those images can have huge impacts on the messages you’re sending to the world. One thing I love to tell anyone who is starting a new brand or considering a rebrand is: don’t sleep on lifestyle branding. 

One of the many reasons I love my job is because of the many ways that projects come together. My creativity often feeds off of the unpredictability of photo shoots — will the weather hold out? Will the subjects show? It’s a lot of nimble problem solving and thinking on my feet. It’s not unusual for me to be thinking about my next shot while I’m still clicking away at my current one.

Back To School has long been a marker of change for students and parents alike. Growing up in my house, when the hydrangea in the front yard started to bloom, we knew those yellow school buses would not be far behind. The first day of school — from kindergarten all the way until senior year of high school — was always equal parts excitement and nerve racking for me. While I was always ready for the start of a new school year, the end of summer was always bittersweet.

The beginning of August means a new school year is a mere couple of weeks away. While a lot of people (myself included) don’t want to acknowledge the fact that summer even has an end — or that that end is coming nearer — it is nonetheless true. So, in the spirit of collaboration and sharing of insights from my side of the table, I thought I’d broach a topic that often can get overlooked in the summer malaise: the benefits of planning your fall content calendar.

ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT IS CRUCIAL FOR BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH ALUMNI AS WELL AS INCREASING FUNDING FOR UNIVERSITIES. WE LOOK AT SOME BEST PRACTICES.

The Clay Center wanted to create large format prints of their students to hang in their office, and in order to make the pieces more inviting to students we decided to create casual, active portraits of the selected students.