There's a line in Across the Universe where Jude says, "Well, surely it's not what you do, but the... the way that you do it."
I've been thinking about that a lot lately.
If you look at my week on paper, it doesn't make a lot of sense. I might spend Saturday shooting a wedding, Tuesday refinishing a Heywood Wakefield table in my shop, Wednesday delivering headshots at a corporate conference, and Friday building something in the garage. Five businesses. Multiple trades. No obvious thread.
For a long time, I thought that made me scattered. The world has a way of telling you to pick one thing — niche down, stay in your lane, build the brand. And I get it. That advice works for a lot of people.
It just never worked for me.
What I've started to understand — and this conversation I had with myself recently kind of forced me to say it out loud — is that the thread was never the category of work. It was always how I do it.
Every single thing I take on, whether it's an elaborate wedding or a chest of drawers someone's grandmother left them, gets the same thing from me: my full attention, my best skill, and the kind of care that makes people feel like they were the only client I had that week. That's not a business strategy. It's just who I am.
I've always hated the idea of the normal 9-to-5. Not because I'm allergic to work — anyone who's watched me spend three days on a lacquer finish knows that's not it — but because I've never been able to separate what I do from who I am. The work is personal. All of it.
The restoration, the photography, the woodworking — they're all the same conversation. They're all about taking something and making it better than you found it. About paying attention to the details that most people walk right past. About showing up fully, every time.
I don't think that's "all over the place." I think that's just a life built on craft instead of category.
And I think there are more people living that way than the career advice industry would have you believe. The ones who can't just pick one thing — not because they lack focus, but because the thing they're focused on cuts across every discipline they touch.
If that's you, I just want you to know: you're not scattered. You're building something that doesn't have a template yet.
And that's actually a very interesting path.
Photographer · Woodworker · Restorer · Builder · Musician