The VoyagePhoenix Interview

Got featured by VoyagePhoenix talking about how I got here. Photography, performance creative strategy, the years in between, and how The Lens of Peet actually came together.

It's the most complete version of the story I've told anywhere. The early camera experiments in 2008. The accidental party shooting that turned into a real thing in 2017. How nightlife photography gave me thousands of reps in chaotic environments, and how that trained the instincts I use now when I'm building ad creative for DTC brands spending six and seven figures a month on Meta.

There's a version of this where those two paths never connect. Photography stays a side hustle. Strategy stays corporate. But the years I spent shooting live events, reading rooms, making split-second framing decisions, that's the same muscle as reading an ad account and knowing which hook is going to land before you test it. The pattern recognition just found a new surface.

The interview covers the full arc. The Varitec chapter. The unemployment stretch. The pivot to UGC Factory. Building thelensofpeet.com in 48 hours. The Withings case study. What it actually looks like to run two businesses that feed each other instead of competing for your attention.

Worth a read if you're curious about the work, or what it looks like to build two things at once for a few years before they finally made sense together.