@Cody Henkel That's good to hear. That level of trust is always helpful when doing creative work.

@Cody Henkel absolutely!

@Cody Henkel It's great content and I think it's so valuable.

@Cody Henkel That's a great question. I wish I knew the answer to it. I'm the type that when I have a pressing question, I go find the answer. It's not usually until I have pressing question that I know what would make things better for me and at the immediate moment, I don't have a pressing question. I hope that makes sense.

@Cody Henkel Sweet. That sounds like an awesome deal.

@Cody Henkel haha, it's okay to be biased.

I agree. I use the Hero's journey in the stories about how my photos were taken on my Etsy store. Let's face it, "Oooh, that looks pretty" is not that compelling a reason to be sucked into a photo. An example of a story that came out of a, "wow, I really like how the sunlight is hitting those pylons" moment. Would it be possible to find some beauty in the Oceanside Pier now that the damage from the fire has been hauled away and all that's left are the pylons ready and waiting for the rebuild? My intentions were clear: I would photograph the Oceanside Pier like it had never been done before. As I arrived, a wave of heartbreak hit me. The end of the pier, once a landmark of beauty, was stripped down to its pylons—no sign of the fire that had consumed its structures. Just emptiness. I hadn’t been back since a week after the blaze, and now, standing on the shore, I wasn’t sure what I’d find. The salty breeze carried the scent of the ocean, tinged with something hollow, a reminder of what was lost. Launching my drone, I searched for beauty in what remains. The hum of the motors blended with the distant crashing of waves, but each angle I tried felt lifeless. The pier was a skeleton, a ghost of itself. I was running out of time—and battery. My controller’s warning beeped. I had to return soon, or risk losing my drone. And then—just as I was about to call it—light broke over the hills. The sunrise sliced through the pylons, casting long shadows across the rippling water. It was fleeting, unreal, a sight that wouldn’t be possible once the pier was rebuilt. My heart pounded as I framed the shot, capturing the beauty that had seemed impossible to find. But there was no time to admire it. The controller screamed—battery critical. I pushed my drone back, fighting the urge to panic. The alarms blared as I barely got it back it to my position, hands steady as I brought it down safely. I had done it. A rare view, a fleeting moment of beauty, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. My friends and family were in awe. And for the first time, I felt like I had truly seen the pier’s resilience. This moment of beauty that could only happen now in the brief window of time that will be forgotten once the end of the pier is rebuilt.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I just tried out an AI editor on the photos for the last real estate shoot I did. It did a nice job. If I'd have known it was going to be that easy, I would have brought my laptop to the shoot and just uploaded the photos from a starbucks or something and it would have done the intial edit before I finished driving home.

@Cody Henkel Yeah, I always make paid work a priority.