Cup of tea!

Another night and I’ve been thinking about how many years now I’ve been blogging on here. It’s going to be a decade on this blockchain in 2026 which is truly absurd. I think back to when @mada first told me about this place. At that point, I hadn’t been aware of blockchain and cryptocurrency. I remember my first introduction post made over $3600. I kept saying to him, “So, what — these are like points or something?”. He said, “No. That’s real money.”. I told him to get fucked. No way. He showed me how to use Shapeshift at the time, and I began a transfer for $300. I told him no way would that ever work and three days later, the funds arrived in my checking account. I haven’t looked back since. I’ve made significant money on Hive over the years with the swings, but more than that, it’s the existence of a creator platform that values content. There’s still nothing like it.

So, I’ve been sharing some of my new path in photography. I’m going to continue sharing new edits of my old work here as well. I’m not ashamed of my pinup photography or my book; it just isn’t aligned with my career now and where I’m going in this chapter of my life. I’m fortunate that I haven’t had too rough of a transition between industries. I’m still doing portraits, weddings, nikah, etc. but the majority of the work I’m getting now is food photography. There’s a local Yemeni coffee shop that opened here in June. My best friend Fadi invited me here on opening day and we waited in line for three hours. Since then, they’ve hired me to shoot their product and social media campaigns which has been challenging, but rewarding work. I love food, I love to cook, so it’s tapping into creativity I didn’t realize I had.

The cafe has reached unprecedented popularity in the community. I’m writing this blog post at one of the tables here and on a Monday night at almost 11:00p.m., there are at least sixty people here ten minutes before close. The owners are ambitious and are constantly following trends like Dubai chocolate and fall drinks. It’s kept me busy. We recently worked out a contract to shoot all of their social media content on a regular schedule, every two weeks, which in a sense brings me more financial stability than I had when I was flying all over the world doing dark pinup photography — also, in my home city without having to board a plane. Alhamdulillah! As I’ve written about at length, flying is my greatest fear.

I think it’s important to grow and evolve as an artist. I know it sounds wild that a guy that flew around the world photographing beautiful women in lingerie could somehow be content now shooting lattes in a midwest coffee shop, but it’s true. There was a tremendous amount of stress and validation that came with the pinup career. Over the 20 years I did that work, I saw my style, once unique, become co-oped by other photographers in the scene. I didn’t cope well with that. COVID really undercut my relevance and the genocide in Gaza was a point that I knew it was over. I couldn’t bring myself to post something sexy with so many dead kids in my feed. This is a simpler era, but with that comes a peace that I’ve grown to value.