2025 was a threshold year. Probably one of the most pivotal of my life.
This time last year, I was fired from my corporate job. Burned out. Completely fried. The second half of 2024 had me slipping into complacency across the board… work, photography, well-being. I lost my drive for a while. I ended that year disappointed, angry at myself, feeling like I was losing my grip with no clear picture of what came next.
I could’ve let myself go. Could’ve quietly given up. Instead, I bet on myself harder than I ever have.
2025 became my best year in photography, full stop. I captured worldwide artists on festival mainstages and emerging talent in intimate 200-cap rooms. I found myself photographing public figures I never imagined I’d be around. I also somehow made national news and got interviewed by CNN for a shitpost (don’t ask me how that happened, I still don’t know)
I visited 7 countries and spent nearly a month in Europe, part of it solo for the first time ever. That trip rewired me. It proved I could show up on the other side of the world by myself and still be fully me.
Over the summer, I expanded my photography business into a boutique creative studio. Toward the end of the year, I stepped fully into corporate and commercial work, widening my lens beyond the music and nightlife world that raised me. That pivot felt like growing up without losing the soul of why I started. Now I’m doing strategy and fractional creative direction for e-commerce brands from around the world, owning my time in a way the old me couldn’t have pictured.
To every client and collaborator who trusted my vision this year… thank you. And to everyone reading this… your support is the fuel.
2026 is going to be absolutely epic.
See you tonight at Decadence. Finishing this year with a bang 🕺🪩
This summer I decided to expand my studio to include strategy work, and honestly it just felt like the natural next step for The Lens of Peet.
I started this page in 2014 as a place for my hobby to live. Just me capturing the world. Now, 11 years later, I never would have expected this thing to become what it is. A brand. A container for my voice. A vehicle I’ll have for life. I’ve gotten into rooms I had no business being in, met people who changed how I see things, and built something that lets me explore the world while actually bringing value to others.
So yeah, creative strategy felt like the obvious expansion. I made that move back in July and have been doing more work outside the camera lately, helping DTC brands with creative direction through ad and UGC work. Planning to double down on that in 2026, crossing my analytical side with my visual side.
And now the logo finally reflects that (should have done this in the summer, but here we are).
In the new year I’ll be weaving more of that strategy and cultural analysis into what I post here. Less of a photo page, more of a creative studio feed. Photography and strategy living together.
The work continues 🧗
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📸 @karen_cophotography
Back with @touchgrassent for year two of the Phoenix Anime Rave 📸⚡️
I don’t know how to explain it other than…this crowd is just always into it. Like fully into it. Makes it one of the more fun rooms I’ve shot, honestly
…so I just got featured in a magazine 😳
The full story goes: kid gets a Flip Camera for Christmas, accidentally brings a camera to a frat party years later, starts shooting parties and music events, that turns into corporate gigs, and somehow all of that becomes running creative strategy for brands
VoyagePhoenix picked me to talk through how it happened. Link in bio!
Almost a month late on these but here’s some pics of Liquid Stranger tearing up Rawhide
Also did y’all know he lived in Scottsdale for a while? A Swedish guy moving to the Arizona desert to make bass music is extremely on brand for this state
Been back in my portrait bag lately 📸
After years of shooting events and shows nonstop, it feels good to slow down and do these typa shoots again. Takes me back to the COVID era when everything was shut down and that’s all I was doing for a minute.
Appreciate @valkoriondub for coming through and trusting the process 🤝
The polished, optimized, algorithm-friendly look that dominated the last 5-10 years?
It’s cooked.
Some of these trends have been building for a while. Others are still niche enough that most brands haven’t caught on.
AI commoditized “professional-looking.” Now the market is over-correcting toward anything that proves a human was actually in the room.
Here’s what I see driving photo + video branding in 2026:
• Shutter drag with flash: Motion blur plus frozen subject. The visual language of UK garage flyers and Rinse FM posters in the 00s.
Never left the underground; just surfacing now.
• Handheld > gimbal: Smooth stabilized footage reads as stock or AI-generated now, making it feel unnatural for viewers. The shake is back.
• Full analog renaissance: This one’s been cooking for a while, but it’s going full steam this year with more versatility than ever. 35mm at DJ sets, Super8 at festivals, Hi8 handycams back in rotation. The inconvenience is the point. People yearn for the format that’s hardest to fake.
• Mini-docs x long-form: the 15-second dopamine slot machine is burning people out. Depth over virality. Story over algorithm.
• Gen X Soft Club grading: Not the glossy chrome Y2K everyone’s run into the ground. The cooler sibling: blue-green desaturation, liminal spaces, airport terminals at 2am, PlayStation cutscene energy. Less Destiny’s Child, more Wong Kar-wai shooting a Sony ad.
• Indie sleaze returns: Cobrasnake energy. Blown highlights, crushed shadows, on-camera flash, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr album circa 2009 vibes.
• Maximalist imperfection: Messy rooms, cluttered frames, visible chaos. After a decade of minimalist flat lays, people want images that look lived in, not art directed within an inch of their life.
• Directed, not documented: Strategy is the new premium. Anyone can press record. The money is moving toward people who see three moves ahead.
The best work in 2026 will feel like it couldn’t have been made by anything other than a specific person in a specific moment. That’s the whole game now.
What are you seeing? Drop what I missed 👇
