Year In Review - 2025

So much of my adult life, every year could be neatly summarized by "did my job, cooked dinner, raised babies". I don't think there was much value in summarizing that life. But this year, in all of the freedom of not working a 9-5 job I feel detached from time. When reading Rek's year in review I found myself wondering "Gosh, what did happen this year?". I was surprised! It's been a busy year, and much of it if you asked me I would have said happened over a year ago!

Things I Made

• Lens board pattern cutting jig
• Black and White film Developer (PC-512 Borax)
• Walnut Picture Frames
• 17x21 Contact Printing Frame
• UV Exposure Unit
• 3d Printed Medium Format Camera Body
• Modded Polaroid 900 to shoot 4x5 with a custom front standard
• Modded Kodak No 3a Autographic to shoot 120 film
• Color inkjet prints
• Cyanotypes, Cuprotypes and Argyrotypes

I'm sure I've left off some stuff, but overall I'm really quite thrilled with all the progress here. I'm super excited about the progress made on my ability to make prints in my home dim room. I hope to make much more use of it next year.

Things I Learned

• Took a charcoal drawing class
• How to use QuadToneRip to make contrast adjustment curves
• How to make argyrotypes
• How to make cuprotypes
• How to use joints in fusion360

Places I Went

• Iceland

• Lind WA

• Blakely Island

• Austin Texas

Things I Read

• Black Leopard Red Wolf - Marlon James
• Moon Witch Spider King - Marlon James
• Our Game - John Le Carre
• Chief Seattle and the Town That Took His Name - David M Buege
• A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
• Blindness - Jose Saramango
• Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson

Black Leopard Red Wolf knocked my socks off! I couldn't stop telling people about it. It is very hard to recommend to people without some caveats. It is violent, sexy, gay, terrible, and glorious. It is a strange fever dream of a book, filled with a mythos that I've never known about.

Things I watched

• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Past Lives
• Sorcerer
• Weapons
• Ikiru
• The Substance
• Sinners

I absolutely loved Portrait of a Lady on Fire, probably my personal favorite of the year. Not at all a movie in my normal genre. I would never reach for a period drama. But I found this to be just a lovely piece and absolutely smouldering romance. Beautiful work. Sorcerer was another surprise, having been underwhelmed by The Wages of Fear I didn't have high hopes, but I thought Sorcerer was a better movie in every way, and what impressive practical effects! It was a lot of fun to watch Ikiru at Cinerama with my friend's Matt and Beth. I'm out of the norm and didn't care for Sinners or The Substance.

Things I Played

• Caves of Qud
• Monster Hunter Rise (again!)
• Dark Souls
• Dark Souls II
• Bloodborne
• Sekiro

I kicked off the year by playing Caves of Qud. It was a real adventure! Balancing narative, deep simulation game play, and intricate hidden systems. I loved it. I came back to Monster Hunter playing through the main game again with my sister Thea. It was a lovely way to spend time together and stay in touch. And I broke through my FromSoft blockage. I really enjoyed all of them, but probably BloodBorne the most. Sekiro I haven't finished, I think it's a beautiful game, and I like being in the world, but the boss battles are punishing.

Other fun stuff

• Hosted a Merveilles art exchange
• Threw a neighborhood block party
• Repaired so many things:
  • Jet 8" Jointer
  • Ilex No 5 shutter
  • Ilex Optimo Shutter
  • Mamiya Press 65mm
  • Mamiya Press Universal Body
  • Wollensak Alphax No 4 Shutter
  • Minolta Autocord
  • Voigtlander Vito B
  • Voigtlander Perkeo
  • Random Russian Shutter

Next Year

Looking forward I would like to find ways to spend more time working with other people. I tapered off most of my classes at PCNW this year, focusing instead on my own work at home. But as a consequence I spent a lot of this year alone. Collaboration is a perenial challenge, maybe this year I'll make some progress on it! By the end of 2026 I'd like to have produced a collection of prints to hang for a show. I've been working on a larger collection of images for a photobook and I'd like to have that in a good place. Finally I'd like to bring more drawing into my regular practice, I really enjoyed the class I took but I haven't found the way to bring it into my regular life yet. Overall I'm excited for another year!