I started with one camera. Then came video, agency partnerships, website design, and brand design. Today I run Raised Media Co., a creative agency based in New York, working with clients across industries and around the world.
The work got bigger because I kept wanting to follow the idea. Make the image. Figure out where it lives. Bring in the people who can take it further.
Photography gave me somewhere to begin
A photograph is a decision about attention. You choose what someone sees, where their eye goes first, and what stays outside the frame. There’s a lot of thinking inside something that can look simple when it’s finished.
That gave me a question worth following. What does this person, this idea, or this business need someone to understand?
When you begin with a camera, it’s easy for the camera to become the way other people define you. I still love photography. I also wanted room to follow the parts of an idea that a single image couldn’t hold.
Video brought more people into the picture
With video, the frame becomes part of a sequence. A look changes because of what happens before it. A pause, a voice, or a cut can change the meaning of the same image.
You also depend on more people. Different people bring different kinds of judgment, and a strong result depends on those decisions making sense together. Someone can do excellent work on their part while the whole piece still feels unsettled.
I started paying more attention to how those decisions fit together. How do you describe an idea clearly enough that other people can help build it? How do you protect what matters while making room for a better suggestion?
Partnerships expanded the job
Agency partnerships added another layer. You become part of a wider team, often with an existing strategy, a client relationship, and a lot of thought already invested in the direction. Understanding that context is part of doing the work well.
I see partnership as a responsibility to make the entire project easier to carry. That includes the things nobody puts in a portfolio. A clear handoff, an honest conversation about what’s possible, and a decision made early enough to be useful all count.
It also changes how you think about credit. Some contributions are highly visible. Others are successful because the people involved can keep moving without having to think about them.
Then the work needed a place to live
Website design and brand design were a continuation of that curiosity. Once you care about how an idea is photographed or told on screen, you start caring about what happens around it. The page, the language, and the visual identity all shape the experience.
A photograph can do its job and still end up on a page that gives it no context. A thoughtful identity can become hard to recognize when every new piece of work follows a different logic. Those are creative problems I want to be involved in solving.
Each new question gave me a reason to learn. Learning another discipline gives me more ways to respond, and a better understanding of when someone else’s expertise belongs in the conversation.
A company is something you make together
Raised Media Co. is a creative agency with roots in photography and video. Agency partnerships, website design, and brand design are part of the story now too. The team gives those different kinds of work the attention they deserve.
Working across industries and around the world keeps that process interesting. The context changes, so listening has to happen again. I want us to bring a point of view without arriving with every answer already decided.
And I want us to enjoy it. There’s room to care deeply, work hard, laugh, and make something we’re excited to share. Building a company should give more people the chance to have that experience.
I still want to stop in the street when the light does something strange. The agency grew out of that curiosity. I’m keeping it.
All six notes ↗