We’re all overwhelmed by endless streams of photos, videos, and memories. Snapshots pile up on our phones, but something always feels missing. Why? Because photos can only capture a moment's appearance, they rarely tell the whole story.

What if we approached documenting life differently? Imagine each moment as a carefully plated dish instead of a chaotic all-you-can-eat buffet of memories—a creation with purpose, intention, and just the right ingredients to preserve its essence.

The Buffet vs. The Plate

Writing and documenting life often feel like a buffet. With unlimited tools and words, it’s tempting to use them all. But just because you can pile everything onto your plate doesn’t mean you should.

Instead, think like a chef at a fine dining restaurant. Plate each idea with care. Focus on brevity, presentation, and the right details. Leave room for imagination—space for your future self to savor the memory fully.

A Recipe for Moments

When documenting your life, consider each moment a recipe. What makes it special? What are the key “flavors” that define it?

Capture those elements as close to the moment as possible. Jot down the who, what, where, when, and why. These simple, essential details are like the ingredients of a great dish. With them, you’ll have everything you need to recreate the moment’s richness later.

More Than Just a Photo

Photos are powerful, but they only tell part of the story. They don’t capture the moment's emotions, sounds, or meaning.

Take a little extra time to go beyond the image. Write down why it mattered, who you were with, or what you want to remember. While the photo might be for social media, these deeper details are for your future self—who will savor them years later.

Savoring the Small Details

Life isn’t about quantity—it’s about quality. The most meaningful moments aren’t the ones we try to document exhaustively but the ones we preserve intentionally.

The Personal Life Record system helps you focus on what matters most. It’s a simple framework for capturing and organizing the key moments of your life. With the right details in place, you’ll have a lasting record to revisit and reflect on whenever you want.

Final Thoughts

Years from now, you won’t just look back at words or photos. You’ll relive the laughter, the gratitude, and the magic of being there.

Start documenting your life with clarity and purpose. Visit PersonalLifeRecord.com to learn more and begin your journey today.

Instead of writing a list of resolutions or penning hopeful wishes to your future self, I've been thinking about a different approach to the New Year's accountability tradition.

What if, rather than focusing on what we hope to achieve (and beating ourselves up for failing), we focused on clearly articulating who we are right now?

The Power of Present Documentation

During a New Year's Day bike ride, wrestling with this concept, I realized that the most valuable gift to my future self might be a clear snapshot of who I am today.

I’ve been reading article after article about New Year’s Resolutions. Then my daughter told me about a letter she would write to her future self. But when I sat down to write it, I got stuck in what would benefit my Jan. 1, 2026 self to read.

Instead of writing, "Hey Sean, I hope you got all the shit done that you said you were going to do," what if I captured the complete picture of January 1, 2025 Sean - someone who's tired of seeing the same yearly and five-year goals roll over year after year, who's fed up enough to make serious changes?

The Science of Storytelling Change

The best stories show change, transformation, and growth, but there's no way to measure that unless your future self can compare your current self with a non-judgmental, scientifically accurate sampling of who you are right now.

Think of it like a scientific experiment—you need an accurate baseline measurement to track meaningful change. Traditional goal-setting often fails because it focuses solely on desired endpoints rather than measuring the actual delta of change. It's like trying to understand a weight loss journey without knowing the starting weight or evaluating personal growth without a clear picture of where you began.

The Elements of Your Present-Self Snapshot

Think of this as creating a detailed baseline measurement of your current self. Like a scientist gathering comprehensive data, you want to capture the full dimensions of your current state.

Start with your core identity and mindset - how you see the world and what shapes your decisions. What makes you happy, sad, mad or glad?

This means acknowledging that I'm fed up with seeing the same goals roll over year after year, someone who values getting things done over hoping things get done. It means being honest about how I define success, like my shifting view on weight management from finding the perfect diet to understanding basic principles of consistency.

Document your daily reality - the patterns and habits that make up your life.

My current snapshot includes my relationship with exercise (consistent but not at training intensity), my struggles with my morning routine, and trying to stay on top of my projects so my wife doesn’t put me on Project Probation again.

Your relationship landscape matters, too. Beyond just listing relationships, capture their current dynamics. For instance, my relationship with work is at a turning point. My goal for 2025 is to help people catalog their lives more meaningfully (not just helping them capture what they look like).

The inner world is crucial—those questions that keep you up at night, your certainties, and your sources of joy and anxiety. Right now, I'm wrestling with how to turn my book idea into a reality and create workshops that help people preserve their important moments.

Finally, capture those forward-looking elements - not just goals, but the changes you sense coming. What makes you curious about your future? What possibilities are emerging? What resistance do you feel?

Creating Your Baseline

This approach shifts the focus from achievement to growth. Instead of creating what amounts to a future performance review, you're making a tool for genuine self-reflection. Your future self can examine what got done and where those motivations came from. You'll see how you've changed your approach to life's challenges, relationships, and personal development.

Remember, this isn't about crafting a perfect document or hitting every category. It's about honestly capturing your current state of being. Include the messy thoughts, the uncertainties, the hopes you're almost embarrassed to admit - (no one will see this but you).

The more authentic your snapshot, the more valuable it will be to your future self.

Ultimately, the goal isn't to create a scorecard for next year's you to grade themselves against. It's to create a time capsule that helps you understand and appreciate your evolution, regardless of which goals were met and which ones transformed into something entirely different along the way.

As a triathlete, I spend 30-40 hours per month training. During these long hours of swimming, cycling, and running, I often feel like my brain is working as hard as my body.

I don’t listen to music when training – instead, I let my thoughts flow.

But there were so many times when I was out training and I came up with story ideas or solutions to problems that had my attention, and I thought, “OMG, I need to write that down – I’ll surely remember that when I get home.” But when I arrive home, I’m lucky if I even remember the topic, much less the nuanced words and phrasing that came to me on the trail.

This is why I developed UnRambling – a practice of recording my thoughts while in motion, then using AI to transcribe and refine these recordings into coherent narratives that maintain my authentic voice and insights.

The Echo Chamber of Thought

I find that it’s important to start the ride, run, drive, etc., with an idea or topic(s) you want to explore and then gently return your attention to that idea when you go off-topic. That way, as you get bored about talking about the same thing from the same perspective you normally talk about, your brain comes up with different ideas as it tries to become un-bored. Also, by talking about it, the process seems slower than just thinking about it, so your brain isn’t able to ping-pong between ideas.

I tried bringing pen and paper when I ran or rode, but then I had to stop, and I was sweaty. I’m back to the limitation of trying to write and find the right words. Voice recording eliminates these practical constraints while preserving the natural flow of thoughts.

The Process of UnRambling

I find that it’s important to start the ride, run, drive, etc., with an idea or topic(s) you want to explore and then gently return your attention to that idea when you go off-topic. That way, as you get bored about talking about the same thing from the same perspective you normally talk about it, your brain comes up with different ideas as it tries to become un-bored. Also, by talking about it, the process seems slower than just thinking about it so your brain isn’t able to ping-pong between ideas.

I tried bringing pen and paper with me when I ran or rode, but then I had to stop, and I was sweaty. I’m back to the limitation of trying to write and find the right words. Voice recording eliminates these practical constraints while preserving the natural flow of thoughts.

The Power of Sustained Focus

I heard once that in order to be a National Geographic photographer, you had to shoot 100 rolls per day. It wasn’t that they wanted that many photos, it was that by the 100th roll, you’ve gone beyond the ordinary and pushed yourself to see what others (or an earlier version of you) missed. I think the same thing happens when you reroute your brain to keep thinking on the same topic – it forces you to go beyond what you normally see, to not only look for new vantage points and perspectives but to transcend what your eyes were physically able to see mentally.

When a Nat Geo photographer sits and waits all day for the right shot, nature shows itself when there is peace and quiet. Amazing things come out of the woodwork when your brain doesn’t realize anyone is watching. It’s the same with thoughts and insights – they emerge most freely in those moments of patient observation and mental stillness.

The longer I stay on a topic or by the end of the UnRambling session, I not only see the subject more clearly, but I’m often able to tie into related ideas I hadn’t thought were connected before – just like a photographer might see two species interact in ways never imagined. Then, as I end a session and get closer to home, I always give myself time to reflect and sum up my thoughts. I say something like, “As I end this UnRambling session, I feel…” or “I see…” or “I realized…”

The Raw and the Refined

If you read the transcript or the final draft of my UnRambling, it makes me look like a professional orator atop a TedTalk stage. I’m always amazed at what actually comes out of my mouth on these exercises. But you don’t see all the spaces and gaps as the words unramble out of my head. Speaking doesn’t remove the pauses and “bottleneck” of getting words and thoughts out of your head, but it does eliminate the “editor’s hand,” and words flow faster.

Why UnRambling Works

The power of UnRambling comes from several key elements working together:

1. Physical movement creates the mental space needed for deep thinking

2. Voice recording eliminates the physical and editorial bottlenecks of writing

3. Sustained focus on a single topic pushes us beyond obvious thoughts to deeper insights

4. The act of verbalization forces clarity by requiring the concrete expression of abstract thoughts

5. The gentle return to topic, when the mind wanders, creates a productive form of mental interval training

UnRambling isn’t just about capturing thoughts – it’s a specific cognitive tool that actively improves the quality of thinking through movement, verbalization, gentle focus, productive boredom, and controlled pacing. By pushing past our initial, surface-level perspectives, we can discover new angles and connections that weren’t visible at first glance.

The process helps us transcend the limitations of internal thinking (which can become an echo chamber) and written reflection (which can get bogged down in editing). Instead, it creates a space for thoughts to flow naturally while maintaining meaningful structure.

As with those National Geographic photographers pushing beyond their initial hundred rolls of film, UnRambling helps us exhaust the obvious to reach deeper insights and unexpected connections. It’s about creating the conditions for clarity to emerge through motion, voice, and sustained attention.

So the next time you’re out training, walking, or driving, consider turning off the music and turning on your voice recorder.

You might be surprised by the clarity that emerges when you give your thoughts the space to unramble.

The phrase "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is the story of every writer. I'm sure it's how all writers have felt - ever before 'online.'

For years, I've been growing ideas that have become a forest in my head.

Each idea is a tree, carefully tended until it's ready to be transformed into something useful. As a writer, I fell these trees one at a time, hoping they can be used to build my community and fortify my work. But my biggest fear is that they'll fall unheard, lying in waste on the forest floor.

I see it on Substack and Medium - powerful articles with ideas that branch out beautifully from their trunk, only to find zero comments, hearts, or claps below. From all I can tell, I'm the sole witness to their worth.

My own articles often share the same fate.

This captures a central challenge of creating: quality doesn't always equate to visibility. We nurture our ideas, hoping they'll contribute to the broader landscape, but in an overcrowded space, even the mightiest trees can fall without anyone noticing. It raises uncomfortable questions about how we measure the worth of an idea. Is it in the metrics – the likes, comments, and shares? Or does it lie in the potential impact on even a single reader?

Even if no one else witnesses the fall, the act of felling the tree – of writing – transforms the writer. Like a 3D printer turning a digital file into something tangible, writing allows us to hold our ideas, rotate them, and examine them from angles we never could before.

My journal spans decades and contains hundreds of thousands of words worth their weight in gold—first as they hit the page and again each time I revisit them. Every time we write, we transform fuzzy thoughts into clear understanding, build an archive of our intellectual journey, develop our voice and craftsmanship, process emotions, discover new aspects of ourselves, and prepare for when our words might find their audience.

Still, there's something bittersweet about watching our ideas lie dormant when they could be building something beautiful in someone else's mind.

The challenge isn't just to keep writing – it's to find ways to help the right readers discover our fallen trees before they fade into the forest floor.

• I accept thoughts – I greet them without judgment and let them flow through me. I return to intention.

• I accept wins – I am worthy and deserve the good things that happen to me. I don’t sabotage my success.

• I accept impulses – I despise their lies and refuse them ground. Ignored, they die without attention.

• I accept fear – “Fear is the mind-killer. I let it flow over me and through me.” There is only me.

• I accept overwhelm – I default to ‘no’ and guard my yes. I take one breath, one step at a time.

• I accept competition – The only threat is ignoring how competitors elevate me.

• I accept conflict – It’s not about me, and even if it is, it’s not.

• I accept results – Today reflects earlier decisions and behaviors. I can only control what’s next.

• I accept this moment – As of right now, I will do the best I possibly can. I accept that results vary.

Professionally, I use words, photos, and videos to help my clients see beyond what a moment looks like. I’ve even trademarked the phrase, “There’s more to a moment than meets the eye.”

But I’ve been thinking a lot about how actually to do that. How do I practice what I preach regarding my own moments?

How can I make it easy for others to capture their moments (whether they are clients or not)?

How can I model that message?

Setting the Stage

I went out with a friend, Hawaii Ironman racer Kris Estes, to do another run-through of the Mountain Man Triathlon Olympic Distance race on August 11, 2024. I’ve known Kris for decades, and he’s one of those lifelong athletes you want to be when you grow up. Kris agreed to come along and keep me company while I rehearsed the three legs of the race: a 1,500K swim, a 40K bike, and a 10K run.

While I have raced three Ironmans (when I say race, I mean finish) and dozens of triathlons of various lengths, it’s been 15+ years. I bike and lift consistently. I run when I’m not injured, but I haven’t been in the pool since I was racing.

I’m not afraid of the distances, so today's goal was to get a feel for the course and to bring the sport back to my heart.

Meaning goes beyond the visuals.

If you look at the photos from Saturday’s outing, they tell a story about two friends swimming, biking, and running. Looking at these photos years from now will remind me of today.

But what is important about today, and what did it mean?

What is it about this moment that I want to remember?

What nuanced details will I surely forget but would enrich the memory?

Why did I take the time to carry my camera and expend the effort to capture this moment?

What do I hope I don’t forget about this moment?

What Photos Can’t Capture About This Moment

There are so many details that photos can’t capture.

This comes from a school-trained, 15-year newspaper photojournalist and cinematographer. Even if I’d hired a film crew and a handful of photographers, there would be missed details.

For one thing, images can’t capture what we talked about.

For the 90-minute ride, Kris and I discussed everything from our kids to our goals. We talked podcasts with Rich Roll and Andrew Huberman on fasting, exercise, protein, and health. We rode hard and fast. We stopped to enjoy the route. We cruised. We talked about gravel bikes and adventure routes.

None of these photos can tell that it was this ride that I committed to getting a gravel bike so I could start bike camping. I’ve thought about it many times, but this will be a watershed moment looking back ten years from now.

Photos Can’t Capture the "Why Now?"

Why did I decide to pick up triathlon again?

I’m staring 60 in the face, and I refuse to go quietly into the night. That’s probably the biggest reason. I’ve always loved the Triathlon sport. Rain or shine, injured or not, there is always some aspect of the sport to work on.

Photos today can’t capture the coordination that brought Kris and me to the Upper Lake Mary beach. Kris avoided the $10 parking pass because he recently learned his National Park Pass applied.

Photos can’t explain why Kris isn’t swimming today. He tumbled on a trail run earlier in the week, and the wetsuit would aggravate the injury.

They don’t show my rehab work this week or my optimism that I can finish the run today despite a running injury in my left calf.

I hope I don’t forget what it’s felt like to get back into triathlon – to give my training meaning. Day after day, I exercise, but it’s been without benchmarks. I love the work but miss the reward of the race.

A Game of Charades

Every day, we take out our cameras and our phones, snap a few photos, and move on.

Memory after memory piles up on our camera rolls – our brains content that we’ve captured the moment by taking photos, and that’s all we need to do. We barely stop to ponder the moment because we’re on to the next.

Sure, someday we’ll go back and sort and organize them, but at least they’re captured, so we praise ourselves. We might even take the time to post them on social media with a cute caption. Now we’re golden—moment captured!

But we haven’t learned anything about what this moment is trying to tell us.

All the moment can do is stare back at us like a game of charades with its visual prompts, hoping we’ll remember more than what it can say to us in the future.

Photos visually represent a moment and don’t always represent the best “1,000 words.”

The only “meaning” comes from the viewer. No matter what anyone tries to convince you. A photo can only physically say what’s captured in the one-dimensional array of pixels.

A Good Therapy Session

It wasn’t until I sat down with these photos that I understood what this moment meant. I sat back and answered questions that any good therapist would ask.

• Initial questions: “What brought you here today?” or “What did you expect to get out of this?”

• Understanding the problem: “What’s the biggest problem you’ve had to overcome?” or “How does this moment make you feel?”

• Support systems: “How do you feel about your current training?” or “Do you have supportive people?”

• Goals: “What positive changes would you like to see?” or “What would it take to feel happier?”

• Self-awareness: “What are you feeling?” or “What are you thinking?”

• Perspective: “What evidence supports this thought?” or “How would you feel if this alternate thought were true?”

• Strengths: “What are some of your strengths?” or “What personal strengths do you have that would help you successfully change?”

• Progress: “On a ten-point scale, how did you think today was going to turn out versus how it did?” or “What can I learn from today to help me on race day?”

We Don’t Know What We Don’t Take Time to Think About and Learn

I’ll never argue that photos aren’t important.

Photography has been my life’s passion for the past 35 years.

I am now arguing that we should take fewer photos and spend more time reflecting on the moment's meaning.

AND WRITE IT DOWN.

Don’t reflect on the photos by writing elaborate, existential comments for Facebook or Instagram. This has to be for you and not the world. It has to be for your family and your legacy, not for likes and comments.

This has to be about what the moment taught you.

Reflect on the moment. Ask yourself hard questions. Ask yourself fun questions. Be curious. What went right? What went wrong? Take the time to go beyond what the moment looked like. Sit with what it meant.

Listen carefully for the answers.

Answers aren’t always in black and white.

Put down the camera, pick up a pen, and capture the details that matter.

You might miss a few photographs, but imagine what you’ll get in exchange.

Imagine unlocking a flood of creativity and clarity simply by recording your thoughts while on a run or bike ride.

That’s exactly what happened to me.

The act of taking the jumbled thoughts in my head and forcing them to come out of my mouth has helped create a lot of clarity around what’s in my head and what I want to say.

The process is simple: Clip on a lapel mic, stuff a recorder in your pocket, hit record and take off for a run or bike ride. When you get back, use AI to transcribe and sort out what you talked about.

Start with one idea or problem to solve.

I’ve discovered that it’s important to enter these recording/exercising sessions with one idea or topic to explore.

While recording random thoughts can be productive, the most insightful moments came when I force myself to stay on topic. It’s the sessions where my mind is forced to visit, revisit, and even get bored with the idea that I stumble across new insights and perspectives. Acknowledging the randomness in my head and then returning to my intention and focus is really the idea for mindfulness and active meditation.

One of the biggest eye-openers has been the sheer number of insights and original ideas I’ve left out on the trail for so many years.

Running, biking and swimming have always been the place I’ve enjoyed being alone with my thoughts, but I’ve always just left my thoughts out there on the trail. Rarely do they end up coming home with me because I often forget everything I was thinking about or don’t take the time to write them down when I got home.

Working through the ideas in my head during these sessions has created clarity, focus and retention that I haven’t experienced before.

Sure, I sit down daily to write in my journal and carry a notebook to capture general thoughts or story ideas. Still, nothing has been as productive as these hour-long exercise sessions, during which I think, talk, and stay focused on a particular thought.

I’ve really loved the content and articles that have come out of these exercise sessions.

I’ve supercharged my writing and gained clarity and perspective in a condensed time frame. I’m left with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and excitement, and I can’t wait to see what I come up with next. These productive exercise sessions have become a game-changer for me.

Becoming Comfortable with Being Recorded

While re-listening to the recordings when I’m out rambling, I noticed how I mutter, slur my words, and talk too fast without enunciating.

But I’ve also become more comfortable with the red record button being on and flashing.

It’s similar to the discomfort I feel when thinking about recording myself on video for YouTube videos that I’d eventually like to create. Knowing that I’m being recorded has gotten me comfortable with the idea that I’m being recorded, and I’m excited to be even more at ease with it as I continue this practice.

Another thing I’ve become more comfortable with is the pauses between ideas.

I don’t feel the pressure to fill every moment with a thought or my voice or to use filler words like “us,” “ahs,” “like,” and “you know.” I’m okay with letting my thoughts and ideas sit there in the open without having to fill in the gaps.

Recording myself regularly has helped me get accustomed to hearing the sound of my voice.

It’s a process that initially felt awkward, but with practice, I’ve grown more at ease. I look forward to further developing this comfort as I continue this practice and eventually expand to recording videos.

Incorporating AI in the Writing Process

I’ve been impressed with how helpful AI has been in this exercise (pun intended).

When using AI in the past, the text it created felt as fake as an overproduced, photoshopped image.

While the text it generates is pretty impressive, it lacks the soul and life of a human writer. But when prompted correctly, AI has helped me speed up my workflow by synthesizing my thoughts, ideas, and topics, using 100% of my words, accurately maintaining my voice, personality, and tone, and creating content around my ideas that has stayed true to what I actually said.

Almost everything in this article, including the long previous paragraph, is 100% quoted from my last biking session.

AI is to writing that digital is to photography.

What is striking is the similarities between photography and writing.

In the old days, photographing a moment was a manual and expensive process.

You had to buy the film and take the pictures blind, not knowing if they were exposed correctly, composed correctly, or captured accurately. Then, you had to pay to process the film, and once you got it back, you had to manually place them in physical albums.

While the process was therapeutic and full of chance, art, and creativity, it wasn’t available to everyone, and there was a massive barrier to entry.

But I truly believe that what digital photography has done for capturing moments, AI will do for writing.

Back in the good old days, the only way you could see the kind of photography that was trending or the amazing work of other content creators was to literally go to the library to look at what other newspapers in the country were doing, or spend hours at a book story looking at fashion and photography magazines to be inspired by other photographers.

And with all the photo sharing apps like Instagram and Facebook, with all the emphasis put on new ways to create images, the level of photography, even from the most amateur, inexperienced creator, is mind blowing. It’s no wonder that the market is so saturated with amazing photographers and that it’s difficult to make a living doing what used to be a very elite profession.

I think AI is going to do the same with writing – enabling writers of every level to up their game and produce next-level writing.

So, this has probably been one of the biggest takeaways from this exercise of recording my thoughts and ramblings, transcribing them, and organizing the ideas using AI.

I’ve supercharged what I’ve learned about writing and improved my writing skills. And I can’t wait to see what I come up with next.

Gratitude and Anticipation

Reflecting on this process of recording my thoughts during exercise, transcribing them, and using AI to synthesize and organize my ideas, I’m left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and excitement.

I’ve gained clarity and perspective in a condensed time frame, and I’ve been able to generate content and insights that I’m truly proud of.

It’s exciting to think about the possibilities this process opens up.

I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of what I can create and discover by combining my own voice, physical activity, and the power of artificial intelligence. This practice feels like a game-changer, and I believe it will help me continue to grow as a writer, thinker, and creator.

The possibilities feel endless, and I’m eager to keep exploring, discovering, and creating.

Call to Action

If you’re intrigued by the idea of supercharging your own creativity and productivity, why not give this a try?

Next time you head out for a run or bike ride, bring along a recording device and capture your thoughts.

Focus on one topic or idea and see where it takes you.

Don’t worry about how you sound—it’s all about the insights you’ll discover.

And if you’re open to it, consider using AI tools to help transcribe and organize your thoughts.

You might just unlock a whole new level of clarity and creativity.

Happy recording!

Sean Openshaw is a photographer, cinematographer, writer and storyteller from Flagstaff, Arizona. His website, SeanOpenshaw.com, features some of his work.

I often think there is this vast audience out there for me to reach and teach. However, the people who need help are closer than I realize. They have a problem, and I’m working on a solution.

The problem is that people aren’t aware of the problem: We are all going about “capturing moments” the wrong way.

If I create a class or workshop, many won’t initially understand what I’m talking about. Despite my years of experience in photography, the world doesn’t need another photographer selling photography classes, LUTS, presets, gear reviews and wisdom. If I share what I know about photography and film, it must be through the lens of solving this problem.

We are obsessed with “capturing” moments on our phones and cameras, but we haven’t thought about how to organize and preserve these moments. We assume the magical photograph does all the work, so we abandon the most important details of these moments.

Who am I trying to reach?

The profitable audience would be other photographers who promise to “capture your story.” Photographers and videographers, often spending significantly on their craft, are primed to invest in the next big idea that differentiates them and gives them a competitive edge. I know this because I’m one of the biggest spenders in this group.

But my goal isn’t to make money; it’s to help people live, capture, and catalog important moments.

I want to wake people up to the idea that capturing a moment is more than snapping a photo. Taking a photo can actually degrade our memory and retention of the moment. The brain offloads the responsibility of collecting details, assuming the image has completed that task.

We are also not truly in the moment when we worry about framing, composition, exposure, and crafting the perfect social media caption. We remove ourselves even further from the moment as we obsess over the number of comments, likes, and other's opinions of our photograph. The depth of the moment vanishes. Our feed has pretty photographs, but none of the important details remain.

Building a Community: More Than Meets the Eye

I want to create a community of individuals awake to the idea that there is more to a moment than meets the eye. This community isn’t anonymous internet users; they are the parents of the students I photograph. They are even the students themselves. They are the people right here in my local community who I can invite for a workshop or lesson. They are the people "right here in River City."

Join me in this journey.

Let’s redefine how we live, capture, and preserve our most precious moments.

I sit here, day after day, month after month, rutted in the same routine.

“Someday,” sits out there in the sky, giving off a warm glow of inevitability and hope.

Of course, it’s going to happen. Of course, I’ll get there one day.

Someday, I’ll finish my book, get in shape, and lose my dad’s bod. Someday, I’ll make all this money and not have to work anymore. Someday, I’ll have an audience and a message and I’ll change the world.

I feel safe knowing that someday is out there, just waiting for me to catch it.

I’m able to decorate it with hopes and conflate it with ideas. I’m able to imagine it bigger and brighter than ever before and I’m safe knowing it’s up there guiding my way.

But, how is it different than chasing a rainbow or following the North Star?

I can move in the direction I’m imagining, but when will I get there?

I’m never going to catch it until I do this one thing: _________.

Problem is, I don’t know what that one thing is.

I just know that what I’m currently doing isn’t getting me anywhere. What I’m doing is taking me in a direction but it’s never going to deliver me to a location.

I’m going to wake up on my deathbed (or not wake up), and I will never have made it.

It will be my biggest regret – that I never got to where I was meant to go. And all my ideas and plans, all my sketches of this amazing world I had planned to build once I got there – will get stored away in a box, along with my cold, dead body.

All I know is that if I wait until all my writing is polished and “ready for publication,” it will be too late.

And while beautiful and powerful, images can only say what’s implied or inferred.

I want to help people preserve important moments through visual and narrative storytelling.

Every pixel in a photograph and every word in a post are elemental building blocks of your personal story.

The goal of this project is to help people live, capture and catalog important moments through proven processes and procedures, so they can create stories, preserve memories and stay connected to the moments that bring meaning and purpose to their lives.

LIVE: Live a life worth capturing.
CAPTURE: Understand how and what to capture.
CATALOG: Organize and curate moments so they can be found and relived.
IMPORTANT MOMENTS: Pan for gold. Separate the wheat from the chaff.
CREATE STORIES: Leverage proven story structures for compelling narratives.
PRESERVE MEMORIES: Memory is fraught with error. Future-proof your moments.
STAY CONNECTED: Who we were, are and will become link with what we’ve done.
MEANING & PURPOSE: Our “WHY” comes from the stories we tell about ourselves.

I’m not here to sell you anything.

Subscribing won’t put you in my ‘funnel.’

I’m writing a book and creating a workbook to help people catalog the moments that bring meaning and purpose to their lives. But this book is really for me and my younger self. It’s a book and process I wish I had growing up and, more importantly, as a young parent.

But before I write the book, I want to understand what others are going through and I want to create a community of people that resonate with this idea.

Where do YOU struggle as you sort through all the moments you’ve captured about your life and the ones you love?

I’ve been a school-trained, working photojournalist for decades. I worked as a journalist for the military and a visual communication specialist for a healthcare system for just as long. I’m a freelance photographer and storyteller in Flagstaff, Arizona and I photograph close to 1,000 people every year.

For more than 35 years, I’ve been obsessed with capturing important moments and this is my attempt to put my thoughts and ideas into one place so that I can help others while I try to help myself.

I want to solve the problem: How do you create stories, preserve memories and stay connected to the moments that bring meaning and purpose to our lives?

Please subscribe if you would like to follow along and be a part of this conversation.