Every year, the good folks at Linked In remind of my work anniversary. And every year, I am pleasantly surprised at how much time has gone by since I started this little photo + video company. What started in 2006 as a "next step" after leaving the confines of my corporate cubicle has become…

After a crazy busy year of work plus the added drama of losing a parent and undergoing a surgery to repair an umbilical hernia, I think it's safe to say that I need to slow down for awhile.

Happy Holidays, See you in the New Year.

"Well, it's been a year." For many, it's probably been the longest year of their lives. Some have spent the year trying to find some normalcy while they've lived with friends, or family or out of hotels. Almost everyone had to deal with insurance companies and for some, that was a big struggle. Some people got some upgrades to their homes while others chose to or were forced to abandon their homes (or what was left of them) altogether. Business were effected or in some cases, obliterated. And overall, the landscape still looks battered and tired. Whatever your personal experience was with last year's tornados, it's safe to assume that people are still, even after a full year later, "dealing with it." And so here are a few photos to sum up the above words. For timing context, please note that most of these photos were taken on June 3rd, 2025...a little over a year after the tornado.

Like most people, I enjoy traveling for work. I think that the change in routine, combined with a little stress and some distance from an ongoing “to do” list does wonders for one’s mind, body and soul. The sad reality though, is that I don’t often have a lot of downtime to get out and explore the areas where I travel. So I do what I can, which is usually snap photos from a moving vehicle. Photographing from a moving vehicle is challenging and also, very efficient. You can really see a lot of interesting things in a short amount of time in a vehicle. And if you’re not tasked with driving, you can completely focus on the world moving by your window. The following photos were taken late last year and early this year during work trips to Philadelphia and New York.

Last weekend, our beloved Northwest Arkansas area was hit hard by a series of Tornados. Everyone's personal story with this event is different. But the beauty of a disaster situation is that it creates opportunities for help to be given and received, community to be experienced and lives to be changed for the better, even if it seems like it's temporarily for the worse. That's my 2 cents, anyway. The brutal truth though, is that we all got hit REALLY hard and personally, that's something that is dawning on me more and more everyday.

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In almost 20 years of shooting full time Commercial Photography with Novo Studio, I have traveled quite a bit. But for the life of me, I cannot remember a time when I’ve traveled so consecutively for work. For the last 8 weeks, I’ve been gone in some capacity. This does not make me a professional traveler, but I feel compelled to share a bit about my experiences and lessons learned regardless. Since I’m not a professional traveler, I’ll keep my stories, my tips and my tricks short and sweet.

But first, Coffee.

Well friends, it is with mixed emotions, heartfelt gratitude and repeated thoughts of, “I can’t believe I’m actually posting this”, that I write to tell you that we are bidding farewell to wedding photography and video. This decision has been coming for some time now, but was not made without lots of back and forth over whether we would really want to follow through on it.

In 2006 when I first started out, wedding photography saved me from the clutches of the…(click to read more)

Today on the blog: A (rather large) collection of images from recent travels to New York and Pennsylvania. This was a 2 week work trip, broken up in the middle by a weekend in New York City. And we made the most of it. Along with really good food, really good drinks and miles and miles of walking, I successfully made the pilgrimage to the photo/video Mecca, B&H Photo. And I did not walk out empty handed.

Happy May Everyone.

This month is already proving to be an extremely busy one for us at the studio. And basically what that means, is that we’re really not in the studio that much except to charge batteries and switch out gear. However, our friends at Black Apple Hard Cider mentioned that they were going to be doing a special Star Wars themed cider release and they requested some promotional content to help advertise it.

Of course, we decided to do something quirky and fun. What originally began as a simple stop motion project turned into the writing of a short story, the addition of silly voiceovers and sound effects (courtesy of the aforementioned new audio recording gear in the previous blog post), and one big excuse to dig out the old childhood Star Wars toys from the attic.

During the production, we spilled absolutely zero cider, somewhat of a first for us. We did however break a cider glass. This however, was done on purpose and in a controlled environment (aka, plastic shopping bag). Little projects like this, while intimidating in the midst of a busy schedule, can prove to be some of the most rewarding and of course, the most humorous.

For more information on Black Apple’s May 4th Cider, visit their website, instagram or Facebook page.

And as always, May The 4th Be With You.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved music. And now at 43 years of age, I finally started recording some of my favorite music. You can click the photo to read more or you can click here to listen.

One of our favorite things about this line of work are the jobs that seemingly come out of nowhere. Case in point: Jacksonville Florida. Although we’re sworn to secrecy about what we actually worked on there ( Best Paste, Apollo Scrubs, Asmbly Agency), we did take our trusty little travel cameras with us with the intent of somewhat documenting our adventure. And document, we did. So today, we’re sharing a few of our favorite travel images. Enjoy.

Hello and welcome to the last blog post of 2021. Traditionally, we have shared our favorite images from the past year. Of course, we have a lot of favorites and so our posts have pretty much been a photodump smorgasbord from the past year. This year, challenged ourselves to find and share 21 photos from the past year, along with a short blurb or story behind each one. So without further adieu, here they are. Enjoy.

Philip & Jared / Novo Studio

On a recent photoshoot, the inevitable happened; I dropped an expensive studio flash while I was handholding it to get a certain shot. I don’t know how or why, it just slipped out of my hand. These things happen in a photographer’s line of work and that’s why you (hopefully) have insurance. I do carry insurance and after some deliberation, some research and some “go with your gut instinct, I began the process of switching up my studio lighting setup from Profoto to Godox.

It’s no secret that our beloved downtowns are filled with cool alleyways. And as our downtowns continue to grow and revitalize, the traffic in our alleyways is slowly increasing. Late last year, we collaborated with Downtown Rogers Inc. to turn one of our alleyways into an art gallery. The goal was to emphasize the fact that as our alleyways get more foot traffic, the need to keep them clean and safe and even make them more inviting is increasing. To make it even more personal, the art in the gallery was made up entirely of images created in that particular alleyway. Today, we’re sharing some here on the blog.

Happy #throwbackthursday

Happy #throwbackthursday. Today on the blog, a visit back in time to 2010 where an entire day as spent exploring and photographing the ghost town of Picher, Oklahoma. Enjoy.

It seems surreal to be writing a blog post during these unprecedented times. Just 2 weeks ago, the signs of spring and the workload that typically follows, was buzzing with activity and promise. And then, everything literally stopped.

Literally.

Stopped.

In the days that followed…

If you’ve ever perused our instagram feed for strolled by our studio windows, you know that there are a good many older cameras that occupy our space. Some sit prominently in the window shelves while others dot the interior landscape of the studio itself. Some of them actually function and some of them stopped working decades ago but still look pretty. The history of our craft is a fascinating one and part of discovering and learning and honoring that history has been the accumulation and presentation of old cameras in the studio space. It wasn’t until recently though, that we decided to participate in the #throwbackthursday hashtag phenomenon and honor one camera from the collection every week, along with some detailed photographs and a brief history. If you follow our instagram, you’ve probably seen these posts but we thought it important to share a few here on the blog as well. Cheers everyone.

How do you compile a decade’s worth of images and stories into a single blog post? If you ever figure it out, please let me know. In the meantime, this a best attempt at highlighting some of the ongoing clients, fun jobs and unique ingredients that have compiled the last 10 years of Novo Studio.

Enjoy.

Change is inevitable. Sometimes, it’s quick and abrupt. And other times, you start to feel the slow pull and growing tension of the current circumstances and you start wondering what to do about it. The latter has been my experience over the last couple of years…

Almost directly across the street from the studio is The Rusty Chair, an eclectic store filled with cool vintage finds, unique decor and…well…to be quite honest, stuff you never thought you’d see. Take for example the…