A Battle for Bandwidth: The Story of 2025

Dear friends, family, and historians of the future who managed to preserve their basic literacy despite the temptations of AI...

At a distance, 2025 resembles a lot of other recent years I've documented with this blog. Over 12 months I graded a lot of papers, reviewed a lot of movies, and took a lot of pictures. But 2025 has felt different, and after a lot of contemplation, I've landed on a word that explains why: bandwidth.

Most of my primary obligations remained unchanged in 2025, but I had a lot of other issues competing for my bandwidth. Some of these issues concerned memorable successes, like a multi-month basement remodeling project that resulted in a new home office and a pretty decent theater room. Others, as you might imagine, are not the kinds of matters I'd choose to write about here. One safe example is the inevitable march of artificial intelligence, specifically its incursion into the academic world. I've never been a fan of grading papers, but coming up with a reliable means of ensuring my students are using AI the "good" way (back-end editing) instead of the "bad" way (front-end composition), took up far too much of my bandwidth in 2025. And unfortunately, bandwidth seems to be a zero-sum operation. By spending more time on new issues, for example, my notorious habit of taking forever to edit photo shoots became even more exacerbated. But on the plus side, I have a new wall of shelves to display all of my toys--er, collectibles. As with every year it seems, 2025 was the best of times and the worst of times...

- W I N T E R - 

Coming off another busy holiday season, I knew I would spend a good part of January catching up on the unfinished business of the previous year. At the same time, the new year's business took off with a full slate of classes for Weber State's Spring Semester and about a dozen movies I needed to see before the annual Utah Film Critic's Association's vote. Along the way I took some pictures of my old grad school friend Matt and his new bride after their sealing in the Draper Temple and enjoyed a fun shoot out at Antelope Island with Steve. Tack on generous invites to a pair of Jazz games, and the year started off with an uncharacteristically active January.

Before the month was out, I boarded a flight for Tennessee, where the Cheetahman was attending the 2025 SCI convention in Nashville. After having such a nice time in 2024, it was great to break up the winter months with a few more days in Music City, and even though the weather was a little colder this time, Randy and I enjoyed some good food and Southern Hospitality before setting out on the 2 1/2 day journey home.

Nashville has its own Parthenon. Someday I'd like my own Parthenon.

According to Randy, this is a concerning sight, especially in a high profile van.

Once we got back I returned to the teaching grind, and when I wasn't grading papers, checking to-do lists or putting out Winter 2025's various fires, I did get behind the camera. One evening in late February, Steve and I drove out to Photopia Studios to attend their open house event, and in addition to getting some fun pictures, we both won some free studio time.

As usual, the best cure for the winter blues was spending time with my nieces, attending a University of Utah gymnastics meet with Niece #2, giving Niece #1 a spontaneous driving lesson, and continuing a recent tradition of building LEGO sets with Niece #3. The latter proved to be a therapeutic activity even when I didn't have my nieces around.

OK, so technically these aren't LEGOs. Johnny 5 doesn't care.

- S P R I N G -

Most years I mark the transition from winter to spring with a road trip into Southern Utah, or failing that, a formal event like the Holi Festival in Spanish Fork. This year spring arrived around the time my former bishop Darren Barker joined me in my basement to rip out the wood paneling from our old family TV room. After completing a handful of home improvement projects in the last few years, in 2025 I dialed things up with a more ambitious effort. The goal was to remodel the TV room and turn it into a new office. Then in turn, my old office would be converted to a modest theater room. 

In my head, the office build would involve little more than swapping out the old paneling for some drywall, and replacing the linoleum with some flooring planks. But reality so rarely matches what shows up in my head, and in this case that wasn't entirely a bad thing. I had assumed I would transfer my IKEA bookshelves from my old office into the new one, but Bishop Barker suggested we create some built-in shelves instead, and suddenly the office project took on an unexpected creative dynamic.

The wood panels tore out pretty easy, but I gave myself tennis elbow tearing up all that linoleum.

We were excited to see that there was already insulation along the exterior walls.

I got this shot after we hung the drywall, and before we did the mud and tape.

Looking at the results, I almost feel bad that I've filled all those shelves with books and stuff.

Spending time with Bishop Barker was one of the real highlights of 2025, and I used the opportunity to expand my Power Lunch portrait series, which has suffered from a lack of follow-through in recent years. I was able to give the project another modest boost later in the summer after running into my old friend Steve Nelson at a dance recital for my nieces.

The remodel was one of three things that dominated my bandwidth throughout the spring months. Teaching continued to be a little more challenging than usual, as I tried to determine the best way to reconcile advances in AI technologies and a shift to accommodating more international students at Weber State. But the more pressing issue was Mom's health, which followed a series of doctor visits in March with a successful surgery in late April. The recovery process was a lot smoother than with her knee surgeries in 2021, but just like four years ago, the support of friends, family, and neighbors was a huge blessing.

All the time I spent working in the basement, grading papers, or helping Mom made photography more of an afterthought, but as the dust began to settle (in this case literally), I noted that my portfolio still enjoyed some solid activity during the spring season. On occasion I made it out on a traditional sunset shoot, but often the images came from more formal efforts, like a product shoot for Rockagator or a run of portrait sessions with friends and family. And as Spring 2025 began to fade, Steve and I returned to Photopia Studios on Memorial Day weekend to work with a local actress and cosplayer named Hyacinth Wonders. 

In spite of the cold, Brian and I enjoyed a peaceful shoot at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.

My old friend Ryan and his wife acted as my stand-ins before his parents' anniversary shoot.

Rockagator debuted some new color ways in 2025.

Hyacinth even agreed to pose in front of the crazy wall of red roses!

- S U M M E R -  

As May gave way to June and temperatures started to heat up along the Wasatch Front, the summer season brought even more photo opportunities. At the tail end of a busy Saturday early in the month, Brian drove up to test out some skyline options in Salt Lake City. Then a week later, Steve and I headed south to the Four Corners area, where we enjoyed some excellent conditions down in Monument Valley and joined a Navajo photographer named Derrick to explore a remote section of the Bisti Badlands in northwestern New Mexico.

Sunrise in Monument Valley never disappoints.

This formation is called the Alien Throne. It was not the last alien-themed subject I would shoot in 2025.

A couple of weeks after returning from my second major trip of 2025, I returned to Willow Flats for the first time since 2019 to join Randy and Brian and their families on a quick camping excursion in Southeastern Idaho. On the way back I stopped in Smithfield to check on the progress of the new temple.

Brian's sons didn't see much luck fishing, but it was still great to be back in Willow Flats.

The 4th of July weekend kicked off the second half of 2025 with some memorable activities. The morning of the 4th I ran my traditional Centerville Freedom Run with my friend Tyler, then later that afternoon I rejoined Randy and Brian and their families for street tacos and the Oakridge Golf Course fireworks display in Farmington.

I can't remember how this happened, but it's my favorite fireworks shot of 2025.

The following morning Randy brought his van by to help me move into my newly completed office, pick up the TV for my new theater room, and run to the dump and the DI to start clearing through everything that was displaced in the process. As the project neared completion, I zeroed in on a related effort. In early June the Syracuse Temple was officially dedicated, and as Bishop Barker was a Syracuse native, I thought a proper picture of the new temple would make a nice thank-you for all his help. So I kept one eye on the northwest skies as I went about my usual business, and one promising morning in mid-July I took a quick drive to catch some directional light on the brand-new House of the Lord. 

Once August arrived I shifted into that traditional stretch where I'm wrapping up summer semester while preparing for fall. As the summer produce shifted into peach season and midday Maddox runs, I also started to see some production from my own modest gardening efforts. Things stayed busy behind the camera, whether touring the Thanksgiving Point sculpture gardens with Brian or venturing out for a sunrise shoot with Steve at the north tip of Stansbury Island. By the time my fall classes started as the last days of August ticked away, somehow the summer felt like it blew by and stayed forever at the same time.

It turns out there's a "pink lake" on the south end of the Great Salt Lake, too.

But before summer gave up the ghost, it delivered a surprise twist to my 2025 story. On an otherwise normal Wednesday morning, an otherwise normal set of VASA deadlifts started a chain of events that had me in the ER the next Sunday, and September brought a new level of empathy for my mom's back issues along with a couple dozen physical therapy appointments. Strangely, the injury didn't fully kick in until after Brian and I got some pictures at the Pace's Dairy Ann in Bountiful Saturday evening. So the shots below were taken as a herniated disc was plotting to monopolize my bandwidth heading into fall.

- F A L L -

My injury cast a long shadow over the fall season, especially early on as I struggled to accomplish the most menial of tasks. But my predicament also inspired a wave of generosity from friends and neighbors who reached out to help. That same sense of community was on display later in September after a political activist named Charlie Kirk was murdered during a public debate at Utah Valley University. I was only loosely familiar with Kirk's efforts, but the significance of the tragedy left me determined to do some photojournalism in spite of my compromised condition. So the Cheetahman drove me down to Orem, where we spent some time at a memorial that sprung up near the site of the assassination. 

The Orem trip marked some significant progress in my rehabilitation, and few days later I kept up the effort by attending my third straight FanX convention. My primary objective was to collect some more celebrity autographs for the walls of my new theater room, including "Chuck's" Zachary Levi and Captain James T. Kirk himself. But the most memorable part of the event might have been how I kept running into old friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in years.

I was grateful to finally turn a corner in my recovery, but elsewhere, three additional passings added to a bittersweet September. I hadn't covered his Sundance Film Festival since 2019, but when Robert Redford passed away I photographed a memorial to the celebrated actor at the Tower Theater. Shortly after I attended a viewing for longtime family friend Brent Russon, who grew up with my dad in Val Verda and had managed numerous funerals for family and friends. Then a week before General Conference, I got word that President Russell M. Nelson died only a few days after his 101st birthday. 

I will always remember President Nelson's time as one of excitement and optimism, though I have to admit to some additional excitement for his successor, President Dallin H. Oaks. I've always felt a kinship to President Oaks because of his connections to Chicago, where he attended law school, but he's also the first prophet I've met in person. Several years ago we met briefly when he visited my singles ward in Salt Lake City, which makes another of my fall 2025 photos even more poignant. The same afternoon I photographed the Redford tribute, I found my old 100 South singles ward chapel in the process of being converted to a recovery center. I was happy to see it put to noble use, but a little sad to see the building I knew pass into history. 

This watercolor portrait of Brent was included in his viewing display.

Speaking of history, early October brought another poignant moment when I returned to the Jordan Commons IMAX to watch the first TRON movie in 15 years. As a kid I was pretty underwhelmed by the first TRON film (primitive CGI did not compare to Star Wars VFX in my youthful opinion), but "TRON: Legacy" happened to be the first movie I reviewed for the Deseret News back in 2010, at that same Jordan Commons IMAX. My film criticism efforts have taken a lot of twists and turns since then, but it was fun to see the Light Cycle of my career return to a meaningful spot.

We typically don't get assigned seats for press screenings, so getting ticket stubs for both films was pretty much a God Wink for me.

Between my back injury and a host of other conflicts, my efforts to get out and enjoy the fall leaves were pretty modest. But I did manage to cover the Alpine Loop, and the Friday before General Conference Steve and I drove up over Guardsman into Midway. I didn't get any moose pictures during the 2025 season, but a little panning practice added some variety to our results, and along with a few other fall outings, the season provided a worthy boost to the portfolio.

In November, Brian and I photographed the scene of one of my most infamous high school adventures.

Before the injury I had been trying to put together a road trip for mid-September, but after navigating a few painful delays, I finally set out on my first solo road trip in a year and a half during the first week of November. It was a challenge to come up with a worthwhile itinerary that met the limitations of time, finances, and my weakened condition, but I eventually drew up a promising route that took me through western Colorado. My primary destinations were Colorado National Monument and Great Sand Dunes National Park, but often the best moments of the trip were more spontaneous, stumbling onto the UFO Watchtower along the Cosmic Highway, or getting to know a friendly antiques store owner in Pagoda Springs when I stopped to photograph her life-sized Blues Brothers statues. And even if I was late to see their full Autumn splendor, long and winding drives along Colorado's Highway 114, Utah Scenic Byway 128, and Highway 31 between Huntington and Fairview were tonic for a weary soul.

Moonrise over Grand Junction, Colorado.

The Alien Watchtower site is full of fun little shrines to the paranormal.

I was a little late to get my dunes shot at sunset...

The guys look pretty comfy, but it might be time to upgrade the Bluesmobile.

Rainbow over the Fairview Lakes, viewed from Highway 31.

- H O L I D A Y S -

Once I got back from Colorado, it was time to dig in for the annual chaos of the holiday season. As I built up to the Fall Semester finale and began assembling my 2025 UFCA ballot, the holiday activities started to roll in. One early highlight was watching Niece #2 perform in The Nutcracker for a second consecutive year. Then, since I couldn't play myself, I took about 800 pictures at the 19th Ward Turkey Bowl. Finally, a day after Mom and I enjoyed a modest Thanksgiving dinner while watching football, the rest of the crew joined us to put up the Christmas decorations and make my favorite holiday cookies.

December kept things busy as I balanced my do-because-I-have-to list with plenty of do-because-I-want-to activities. Final grading and UFCA ballot-filling was matched with holiday dinners, choir concerts, and a run up to Willard Bay to take Mom on a drive-thru Christmas light display. Then at the tail end of Finals Week, I checked a 2025 goal to attend a new temple with an endowment session up in Syracuse (followed by some surprisingly dramatic sunset pics).

Photographing Christmas lights has always been a holiday priority, and this year the effort got started early when Tyler and I visited the Luminaria display at Thankgiving Point halfway through November. A month later I enjoyed another new subject when Steve and I explored a residential street in Salt Lake City that has gone all out in recent years.

This dancer was posted outside the entrance to the Luminaria display. I assume they poked some air holes in the snow globe.

The lights on Michigan Avenue are a Christmas tradition in SLC.

Thanks to my continued back rehab and other factors, Christmas 2025 had its share of challenges, but as the season approached the finish line, I knew that I'd enjoyed one of my more successful holiday runs. Part of it had to do with getting early starts on both the required stuff and the fun stuff, but I think a bigger part came from spending so much time with family and friends, both on arranged get-togethers and through more spontaneous encounters as I was going about my holiday business. On Christmas Eve Mom and I revived a family tradition by watching "Scrooge," the 1970 musical version of "A Christmas Carol" starring Albert Finney. Like with a lot of great movies, you see "Scrooge" from different perspectives throughout your life, and though I cringe to realize how much I relate to pre-redemption Ebenezer at my age, I still appreciate the way the story embraces hope, and the joy of second chances.

As the year drew to a close, my final to-do list narrowed down to a few traditional tasks, which for the last four years has included posting a compilation of the video clips I've collected throughout the year. I wouldn't rank it with my best work, but this year's video covered the important bases, and as with a lot of other things in 2025, it got the job done:

*     *     *

A few days after Christmas, my family was playing a game called "Tales" where participants had to answer thought-provoking questions. My sister's card asked, "if you had to write your family history, what would be the most exciting chapter?" I think she finally settled on 2020's COVID saga, but I continued to ponder the question long after the game was over. For several years now--well before last spring's new church calling made it official--family history has become a bigger and bigger priority in my life. I still need to get better at the genealogy side of things, but I've come to recognized a clear instinct that has driven my passion for photography and had me making daily journal entries since the summer after I returned home from Chicago. 

This year that spirit took other forms, whether decorating my new office walls with mementos from high school and college, or on several Sunday afternoons when I recorded a series of interviews with my mom while driving around Davis County. Maybe it comes with age, but when I read passages in the Book of Mormon where people pray for the preservation of their records, I feel like I know where they're coming from. And with that in mind, I'm excited to see what I'll post a year from now. 

Happy New Year, everyone, and best wishes for 2026!