2025 Year In Review
Exposure + Composure
900 feet above the valley floor on Pitch 8 of Blade Runner 5.10b
Life can often feel like climbing without a rope. Progress is never linear and eventually moments come for us all when the exposure gets to your head. In those moments you can panic, or you can keep moving forward. Only one of those choices works in your favor.
2025 was a year of contrast. Through the first eight months, sales were down nearly 70% from the previous year’s record high but a delayed fuse brought our strongest 4th quarter ever and on December 21st, we surpassed our best year ever by just over 5%.
We saw a resurgence of love for Black & White work with Viva Las Vegas earning its way to our 2025 Patron’s Choice and a spot on the gallery’s main wall. Red Rock emerged as the overall favorite theme among Patrons with The Abstraction and Magic Mountain both nearing the end of their editions and the Red Rock Abstracts making their way to homes across the valley. The newest release, Black Velvet—capturing the full sweep of the Red Rock range beneath a dramatic desert sky—is on pace for next year’s Patron’s Choice.
Whether it was pushing through fear above the safety of the valley floor or finding ways to more effectively serve the Vegas community with the gifts God has given me, 2025 was one of the most challenging, but also the most rewarding years of my life. Cheers to the road ahead in ‘26!
A Few of Our 2025 Installations
Don’t forget to share your pics of your space with us so we can feature them!
2025 PATRON’S CHOICE | Viva Las Vegas
A resurgence of Black & White with its timeless aesthetic photographed on FILM and Printed as a Negative. Viva Las Vegas offers a depiction of the new “Old Vegas” with the Mirage and distant Tropicana now relics of the past.
GOING, GOING… Almost Gone
Fair Warning, These Will Sell Out Soon (With 100% Certainty)
Magic Mountain
FINAL PIECE ON VIEW
Red Rock Canyon at Sunrise Photographed on 4x5 FILM from Eye Level on an Overnight Climbing Adventure.
The Abstraction
4 REMAINING
Winter light casts shadows across a boulder in Red Rock’s Gateway Canyon. Photographed on Film and Printed as a Negative.
Vintage
2 REMAINING
A 6-Minute Exposure on 4x5 FILM Captures a Glimpse of the Aging Process High in the Upper Elevations of Napa Valley’s Mount Veeder AVA.
BEST OF THE YEAR
Shooting Location of the Year | Dusy Basin, Sierra Nevada
A near 20-mile jaunt over Bishop Pass into the Sierra Nevada Backcountry, Dusy Basin is one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever been with a string of lakes cascading downward from over 11000 feet through an otherworldly Valley set beneath some of the tallest peaks in the country.
I’ve wanted to visit this spot since I started the Summit Series Project back in 2020, and it did not disappoint.
Lower Dusy Basin as Sunset paints Mt. Agassiz, Mt. Winchell, Thunderbolt Peak, and North Palisade Peak
Wine of the Year | Gaja 2005 Costa Russi
$$$ ($400+ per bottle)
A good friend knows my love for Italian and Spanish wines and was extremely generous in opening two epic bottles recently. Both incredible, but the 2005 single vineyard Nebbiolo (I can’t call it Barbaresco by law as it contains roughly 5% barbera grapes) is one of the best wines I’ve ever had.
WINE OF THE YEAR (VALUE WINE)
La Rioja Alta Vina Ardanza Reserva (Vintage 2010) ($42 per bottle)
2009 and 2010 are two epic years in the Rioja region of Spain, and wines from this era have come into their “big boy” phase of life. I used to be able to buy this producer’s 890 Reserva for roughly $70 per bottle and you can’t get it for less than $250 now. The secret is out on Rioja, but the Vina Ardanza is an incredible alternative at a relatively low price for what you get in the bottle.
View of the Year | Haley in the Sierra Backcountry
Haley Enjoying Coffee at Our Backcountry Camp
Haley loves to travel with me to the more luxurious locations I get to photograph (We enjoyed Edgewood Tahoe and NYC this year) but this summer was the first time I’ve ever been able to talk her into joining me overnight in the backcountry.
We spent three days exploring Sabrina Basin in the Sierra Nevada, and I think she enjoyed it enough to make it an annual adventure together!
SEND OF THE YEAR | Blade Runner 5.10b (1010 Feet) + Natasha’s Highball
A “Send” is a successful lead climbing attempt of a route.
I spent most of this year with fairly ambitious goals in the climbing world with a ton of strength gained while still falling slightly short of my two major goals of climbing 5.12 and V6.
Two “sends” in particular were somewhat life changing : the 9-pitch 1010-foot ascent of Ginger Cracks into Blade Runner with the 8th pitch of Blade Runner the absolute most spectacular position I’ve ever been in - a dead-vertical knife’s-edge ridge with 900 feet of exposure below.
Natasha’s High Ball was a close 2nd place, a 50 foot boulder (climbed sans rope) set against the stunning backdrop of Black Velvet Canyon. It took me 2.5 years to build up the nerve to get on it. I climbed it twice that day.
Airing It Out on Pitch 8 of Blade Runner.
Wild Experience of the Year | Hanging off of a 1200+ ft NYC Skyscraper
I’m never above doing something gimmicky, especially if it involves climbing a skyscraper. It was pretty incredible to stand at the highest point in Manhattan (3 feet higher than the One World Trade Observation Deck) and hang over the edge with nearly 1300 feet of exposure. It’s a bizarre feeling to know that human beings can envision and then construct buildings with more vertical relief than the tallest routes I’ve climbed in Red Rock.
Mind-Blowing Moment of the Year | Niagara Falls
Haley and I on a whim in October decided to book last minute to a “fall” location that neither of us had ever been. We decided on the Niagara Falls area (Niagara on the Lake is wonderful). While I’m not big on tourist-y locations, I was blown away at the sheer magnitude of everything about this place.
I simply cannot wrap my head around that much water flowing ceaselessly over the edge of those falls, 24/7, 365 days a year. Incredible.
Sleepy Surprise of the Year | Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains
While I’m pushing for our daughter to go to UNLV after next year, we spent the summer visiting her top college choices, and Haley and I immediately fell in love with the area around Knoxville, Tennessee. The Smoky Mountains are indeed massive mountains, green, with rivers around every turn - a beautiful contrast to our beloved home here in the desert.
I’ll never leave Vegas, but I can see Haley and I eventually spending part of the year in those Tennessee Hills.
2025 List of Gallery Works
Amber Dawn | Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Black Velvet | Red Rock Canyon, Las Vegas
Friday Night In Black & White | Las Vegas, Nevada
Gray & Blue | 48x72 Original Acrylic Painting on Canvas
The Great Beyond | Encinitas, California
Light & Gravity | Niagara Falls
Smoky Mountain Summertime | Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee
The Sound of Autumn | Park City, Utah
Southern Highlands Sunrise | Southern Highlands Golf Club, Las Vegas
The Way Home | Red Rock Canyon, Las Vegas
24/7 365 | Niagara Falls
THANK YOU
To our Patrons Who Continue to Allow this Journey to Inspire You
