tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis

It seems cliche, but it really is strange to realize the year is almost halfway done - and what a busy year it has been so far! I know I've definitely written about it before here, but it seems especially true in 2026 that the more things change, the more they stay the same (side note, this post is just chockful of cliches at the moment, so please bare with me); that in and of itself is rather funny, as its most definitely been a year of change.

Before we get into the changes, it only seems fair to get into literally everything else.

So what's really been going on, in between work and travel? A lot of planning and reflection, to absolutely no surprise for anyone who knows me. It's not unusual for me to jump back into old projects when my anxiety levels are high, and with everything going on in the world and with the economy, this year has been no exception. There were losses (pour one out for my Phoenix Minolta, which finally gave up the ghost in the last few months), but with those came some nice surprises (a rescued Canon AE-1 that I've been shooting happily with in the meantime). For the Book Project, which has long been my most active continuous physical project, I've had the opportunity to also jump back into the digitalization, which has been on pause for a number of years simply due to timing and honest procrastination. It's been giving me so much perspective on where I've been and where I want to continue to go - I've been so stagnate in terms of my thought processes, it's been nice to jump back a few years mentally and apply that same sort of inspiration to what I want to do next.

That really dovetails nicely into the change portion of 2026; not to completely bury the lead, but I'm really invigorated regarding what's to come in the back half of the year (with promises of more frequent updates). Although I'm not completely where I want to be yet, this is honestly the most excited I've been about change in ages. It's funny, since although some of my recent anxiety has been about the future, I'm optimistic as well, which is where I think all of my current inspiration is coming from. The perspective of everything is a nice combination of where I've come from to where I'm going. It's a happily weird space to reside in creatively.