October — A Year in Photographs — Architecture

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Piazza del Collegio — Day 279

October’s theme, Architecture, invited one to explore structure—literal and metaphorical—in a year defined by patterns, connections, and our spaces. Architecture is about intention: humans shaping light, form, movement, and meaning. Throughout the month, I immersed myself in both Italy and Chicago, the old and the new, with one unexpected decision—I photographed entirely on iPhone Air.

I chose the iPhone Air for its constraint and clarity—and it removes friction. Light, fast, always with me, it allows instinctive shooting. In a month focused on sharp lines, patterns, and city geometry, I wanted a tool for free movement, awkward angles, and spontaneity. iPhone Air’s simplicity became part of the concept: architecture is everywhere, and sometimes the best camera meets you where you stand.

Shooting the October series entirely on the iPhone Air realizes #AYearInPhotographs’ reality: each photograph, each month is about the relationship between the subject and the photographer, not the tool. But iPhone Air as a tool created intimacy with these spaces. Buildings and structures we pass, live in, and often take for granted, have defined place’s rhythm and identity. iPhone Air captured that rhythm with simplicity, honesty, and lightness. And one major advantage—no one cares when you’re taking a photo with iPhone. They do care when the big, traditional camera comes out.

Some of the locations I photographed were in relatively secure buildings but when I walked in confidently, appeared to just be passing by and snapping a quick photo, never did anyone seem to care. In the past, when my Nikon, Fujifilm, or even tiny Olympus cameras came with me, suddenly I was the paparazzi to everyone. iPhone Air is not only slim, beautiful, and powerful, it is stealthy.

Shot on iPhone Air, edited in Photos.

August — A Year in Photographs — Beautiful Garbage

Still Holding Your Weight — Day 213

A question philosophers and scientists have asked since the concepts existed, “what is consciousness?” For some, it is emergent like patterns in the sand on a beach or spiral of a snail shell. But some suggest that consciousness is fundamental like gravity or thermodynamics.

Pansychism is that scientific and philosophical marriage that everything in the universe has some sense of consciousness—from atom to human. While I’ll not write a dissertation here on the subject, it catches my curiosity and resonates with my view of the universe yet has a powerful consequential question: if everything is conscious in even the most simple form, how does that change our relationship when we see everything as somehow kindred and not foreign?

Not to suggest Chicago is full of trash and garbage, we are in fact a very clean and beautiful city, but there are those of us locals and visitors who leave much behind. While Beautiful Garbage was originally, years ago, a simple outset to find beauty in otherwise ugliness, #AYearinPhotographs set out to honor that which was left behind and ask for your imagination to come along with me:

What if everything we left behind remembers us?

June — A Year in Photographs — Through the Looking Glass

Balloons — Day 158

Perhaps what makes something wonderful is the imperfections rather than the perfection.

A crack in a family heirloom. The decay of an artifact. The crooked nature of a bonsai. The Japanese call it ‘wabi sabi,’ the philosophy that embodies the appreciation of beauty in imperfection, impermanence, and the natural cycle of growth and decay.

I took June to look at ordinary things through unordinary glass. Some reversal of images, blurring and distortion of edges, and the refraction of the image itself.

“Adrian’s Life Rule 25: Sometimes things that are technically wrong are creatively right.”

— Adrian’s Life Rule #25