Creating Things That Outlive Us

It’s 4:28 a.m. and I’m sitting in an airport waiting to fly to Minneapolis.

I’ve been through MSP more times than I can count, but this trip is a little different. This time it’s for something that will help move my career forward. I won’t go into the details, but it’s the kind of opportunity that reminds you how strange and unpredictable the path can be.

Sometimes you end up returning to the same places for entirely new reasons.

Somewhere between Idaho and Utah.

Yesterday I started working on a new review assignment. For the next two weeks I’ll be testing the Sony A7V for Professional Photographers of America. It’s funny—this is actually the first Sony camera body I’ve reviewed. I’ve spent time with some of their lenses before, including the 50–150mm f/2, which I absolutely love, but this is my first time really diving into one of their cameras.

Working with PPA has been one of the great privileges of my career. I have enormous respect for my editor and the trust that relationship has built over time. When I look back on my career, so many opportunities trace back to a handful of people who opened doors or made introductions.

Malcolm Gladwell calls those people mavens—the connectors who seem to know everyone and quietly move ideas and opportunities between circles.

Most careers aren’t built alone. They’re built through those relationships.

First impressions of the A7V: one small change I really appreciate is the way Sony has integrated Log directly into the menu system. Historically, Sony buried those settings inside the picture profiles—PP7 or PP8—and you had to remember which one corresponded to S-Log2 or S-Log3. I could never keep it straight.

Now you can simply toggle Log on or off.

It sounds like a small thing, but it’s a breath of fresh air. You can shoot photos with a normal profile and turn on Log only when you’re recording video. It makes the workflow much simpler.

Sometimes the most meaningful improvements are the small ones.

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Lately I’ve also been thinking about the idea of timelessness.

It’s a word we don’t talk about very often, at least not in the creative world. So much of what we make now is shaped by algorithms, trends, and whatever happens to be popular this week.

But I keep wondering what would happen if we approached our work differently.

What if we set out to create things that might outlive us?

Work that isn’t optimized for today’s feed, but for ten years from now. Or fifty.

The tradeoff, of course, is that timeless work doesn’t always win in the short term. It might mean fewer views, fewer clicks, maybe even less income along the way.

But if you’re playing the long game, maybe that’s the price of building something that lasts.

And maybe that’s worth it.

Until next time.

Onward and upward.