I had a couple of questions about how I made the book or the concept of the book so I figured this would probably be the best way to document / show you how it came to be.
The concept started off pretty much with me being really annoyed with my own work and I guess a little bit about photography in general. I didn't really like what I was producing at the time and I felt like it was needed to work towards something in order to get myself out of the hole. I took on the challenge of photographing more cars on film this year (2026) and I kinda seen this as an opportunity to challenge myself and try and produce on such a slow way of taking photos.
Shortly, after that it all became a little worse I was still shooting, but my heart wasn't really in it, things pretty much got worse. Instead of becoming even more of a recluse I decided to do the exact thing I wouldn't normally do. I reached out to some photography friends (Mike and Bryan) and explained my issues. The moral support I received was amazing (thank you Bryan and Mike I owe you guys forever). We scheduled a few shoots together to break the ice that I was kinda stuck in.
Most of you don't know me very well but I think I'm mostly a very cup half empty person when it comes to my own abilities. That sounds incredibly depressing but I promise I'm okay. On a regular basis I kinda listen to mostly melancholy music and somehow I find some sort of inspiration from it from time to time. While listening to music one day the line "i came so close to the end saved or destroyed in a moment light sleeper waking again change in my plans said if none of this shit makes more sense in the end i'll be pissed" and pretty much everything started to click I was the light sleeper.
At, times doing all this car stuff can really take a toll. Naturally I place a lot of unrealistic expectation on myself about what I need to do and who I need to work with in order to achieve some sort of "success" but I started to realize it doesn't really matter. I love taking photographs and I love those who allow me to create with there hard work being put on display. Theres a certain feelings that come with it, the idea of shit boxes being driven far distances at all times of the day and night to be put in places that they're not suppose to be in. It essentially raises the question of safety, and the feelings that arise when someone you care about being put in harms way over something silly like photography. Things began to spiral light sleeper became, sleeping at the wheel and the dangers of driving. Once strangers now friends was a real life experience when meeting drivers.
The phrase "Get Home Safe" after closing off a photoshoot with every single person, it just felt like something that needed to be documented. I compiled some older work and scheduled a bunch of shoots and got to work.
I started to mess with photoshop and design a sort of logo or typography for the phrase and this is what those early ones looked like.
I probably had like a 100 variations of the logo before I was able to get to the one you see on the magazine. Same process with the text layouts of all the more graphic text type slides you see occasionally in the magazine. During this time I kinda finally was driving my MR2 more regularly so maybe I sympathized with the idea of driving a shit box car that works when it wants to and is dangerous. Pretty much putting me in the driver seat with all these sort of feelings.
Once the magazine was more fleshed out I pretty much started to thing of the marketing aspects of it and decided to settle on the idea of "me" missing. That my friends are looking for me which was ironically true. As I mentioned previously I kinda took a step back from everything and it felt very reel thought I never really got those phone calls it felt like a way to communicate the way I was feeling, I was missing.
This was the first video I made on a whim before I fully committed to the idea itself. Once I came home to edit it I told mike my idea and he quickly gave me like 5-6 voicemails and I got to work. I will say in hindsight this was such a good idea to give context to the whole way I was feeling maybe not in the most direct way but a way nonetheless. Most of the marketing was complete early on but I had a few slight little issues with certain things not landing the way I wanted to but all in all its probably my favorite marketing thing I've done to date.
First iteration of the magazine was okay it sorta did its job but I wasn't happy it felt short and I wanted more from it so I started to tweak a few things over the course of like 2 months. 
A unreleased slide that didn't make the cut although I loved it so much it just didn't feel like it needed to be there.
The experience itself was necessary honestly and it felt really nice to start from ground zero on something I've never done before. Im excited for 2026 and im going to work hard on things Im excited about. If you didn't know this will probably be a trilogy maybe I don't know I'll see how I feel about it tomorrow. but regardless I'll let you know when I get there.
Get Home Safe
