As we approach the end of 2025, Distant Era looks back on gratifyingly productive year. In 2024 work had been scarce, but 2025 broadened our horizons with opportunities for growth. In this rambling year-end edition of The All Worlds Traveller, we’ll look back on Distant Era’s 2025 and several (though not all!) of the projects we worked on.
Headshots
In mid-2024, I tired of the way I’d been doing headshots and resolved to try something different, more customized and colorful. The proof of concept for this new way was makeup artist Jacque Bischoff’s own December 2024 session, which I felt was the strongest headshot session I had yet done, and it set the tone for 2025.
We continued to improve our techniques throughout the year, and by the end of 2025, Jacque had become Distant Era’s primary makeup artist and photo assistant, having worked together for many clients and a few more theatrical productions. Here are just a few of them.
Performance
I felt fortunate to photograph more theatre in 2025 and to work with a variety of new clients. Making a living shooting theatre feels like doing photography on hard mode, as budgets are often light and tight, as opposed to (for example) weddings, corporate work, etc. Nevertheless, my background is theatre, so I’m personally invested, I empathize with what’s at stake, and I do my best to understand the production and photograph it in a way that clearly communicates its mood and tone.
Enormous thanks to all the theatre practitioners I’ve worked with this year, including but not limited to Idle Muse Theatre Company, Blank Theatre Company, Promethean Theatre Ensemble, Young People’s Theatre of Chicago, City Lit Theatre Company, Northlight Theatre, Broken Planet Show, Concordia University and Megan Wells, Hitch*Cocktails and High Stakes Productions, the Terra Cottas Experimental Theatre Company, the Actor’s Gymnasium, Three of Cups Theatre Company, and many more!
I also had the opportunity to make portraits for a few productions this year.
Distant Era Fine Art and Portraiture
In theory, fantastical portraiture is the core of Distant Era’s art, though due to other kinds of photography work, I don’t have much of it to show this year. Nevertheless, 2025 began with edits of a December 2024 session in which I collaborated with a team of artists (Jennifer and Elizabeth on costumes, Jacque on makeup) to make engagement portraits for an amazing couple. That time on set coordinating the team to realize the clients’ fantastical vision felt as close as I’ve come to living Distant Era’s dream.
Gods and Heroes of the Aegean
Gods and Heroes of the Aegean is the ongoing personal project at the heart of Distant Era’s work. I made some progress on the series in late 2025 and hope to have the second image out in the New Year (following the first artwork: actor Sarah Scanlon’s “Pandora,” photographed in 2023 and released in 2024).
This series requires time and focus, two elements I haven’t had much of in 2025. Even so, of all the photography Distant Era shows and shares, this project is the most creatively self expressive, so the time and focus seem worth it when the images are completed.
Golden Age of the Silver Screen
In response to the slow pace of Gods and Heroes of the Aegean, I wanted to do a short personal series relevant to one of Distant Era’s core pillars of fantasy, science-fiction, or history that would take less time to execute and would teach me new things. Thus came Golden Age of the Silver Screen, a tribute to Hollywood’s heyday. This series has continued beyond the initial project, with clients booking Silver Screen specific shoots, and I still have several more Silver Screen sessions to share from 2025.
Gen Con 2025
Gen Con remains the one convention Distant Era attends as a photographer. I’ve been attending since 1999 and running photography workshops since 2019. Each year, I’ve been able to expand and improve Distant Era’s offerings. This year, in addition to portraiture, a cosplay posing workshop, a toy photography workshop, and running sound for the Glitter Guild show, I photographed a fantastic Dimension 20 Cosplay event. Here’s a small sample of some of the portraits and events we photographed at Gen Con 2025.
Events
And then there were events! In addition to photographing the Dimension 20 Cosplay event at Gen Con, I photographed events for Northlight Theatre and the Actor’s Gymnasium, and for my friend Deana’s birthday (one of my favorite yearly traditions). There were also first communions and company meetings—events I enjoyed but might not share on a blog about narrative photography.
I am grateful to Greg Inda for bringing me on as an assistant or second photographer on a number of other gigs that I’ve never shown on the Traveller, since they’re Greg’s photos to share. These include Chicago Aerial Arts, Northlight Theatre (Prayer for the French Republic, Gaslight), American Heart Association, the musicians Larry & Joe, and others.
I’m also grateful to my former University of Chicago teammate Charissa Johnson for referrals, friendship, and support.
I owe a great debt of gratitude as well to my fine art mentor Chris Koeppen for every brilliant pearl of compositing wisdom he has ever offered.
Finally, my heart is warmed by every conversation and meeting I’ve had with photographers I’ve met along the way this year, including but again not limited to Joe Mazza, Eric Cardenas, Renata Voci, Tyler Core, Conrad Quitoviera, KP Upadhyayula, Renee Robyn, Stone Watters, Aaron Reese Boseman, Alex Albrecht, and so many more.
Dungeons & Dragons Dragon Delves: The Forbidden Vale
Summer 2025 also saw the release of Dragon Delves, a Dungeons & Dragons book to which I contributed the adventure “The Forbidden Vale” in 2023. Not photo work but freelance writing and game design and significant to the year. This was my first release for D&D since the period between 2009 and 2014 when I was a freelance game writer for Wizards of the Coast and other companies. It felt good to return. The adventure more or less accomplished what I hoped it would, and when it was released in July 2025 some thoughtful readers and reviewers recognized it for its merits, which felt gratifying. The pictures below show the day I took the assignment in 2023 and the day we got the book in 2025; I’m wearing a Distant Era shirt in both, which means I was working a photography job on both days.
Speaking of Stories and Games
In the brief blips in time when I wasn’t doing everything involved with running Distant Era, I learned to protect an evening each week in the fall, winter, and spring for story games with close creative friends dedicated to making thought provoking tales. These games keep my narrative and improvisational skills tight, my soul alive, and friendships close and dear.
Among the games we played in 2025 were Becoming, Downfall, Rusalka, Jukebox, The Zone, Hell 4 Leather, The Skeletons, Zombie Cinema, Fedora Noir, To Serve Her Wintry Hunger, Sentinel Comics, In Dreaming Avalon, and The Crime of Prometheus.
My favorite books this year were The Tale of Tales (Giambattista Basile) and Odyssey (Stephen Fry). I also thoroughly enjoyed The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio), The Queen of Elfland’s Daughter, and The Gods of Pegana (Lord Dunsany). I also liked The Mabinogion, even if I got lost a few times, and am finishing Celtic Mythology (Philip Freeman). Finally, I finished The History of the Ancient World (Susan Wise Bauer) again.
Stories Yet Untold
I still have so much to share from 2025—not only headshots but personal brand sessions; a big, exciting fantasy session in Ohio; Silver Screen clients; and more. I look forward to sharing those here during the cold months ahead.
Seeds, Roots, Groundwork
Circling back to the beginning of this post, some important seeds for 2025’s opportunities were planted in late 2024, particularly around Idle Muse Theatre Company’s production of The Tempest and thanks in large part to company manager Kati Lechner, who made space and time to create images that would serve the production and the company and helped realized Distant Era’s vision for theatre photography. Additionally, when I was searching for a makeup artist for Katie’s own headshot session, she suggested The Tempest cast member and makeup artist Jacque Bischoff, a recommendation that improved our studio work all year.
Jacque and I worked together throughout 2025, and I’m proud of the projects we made. Over the course of shoots, collaborations, conversations, and shows, she became a staunch co-worker and a trusted friend.
Hire her for your own makeup here.
Closing Gratitude
Above all, I’m grateful to Distant Era MVP Elizabeth for her patience, assistance, support, and continued enthusiasm, as well as for listening to me ramble aloud about light and strategy games.
Finally, I offer immense thanks to every photo client and referral throughout the year; they have without exception been a pleasure and an honor.
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