Morning Light

A nice little light show before breakfast.

Morning Routines

If there was a such thing as a “perfect writing routine”…it would involve the 7am sun pouring through my living room window, a hot cup of coffee, a La Croix, and a 2 hour stretch devoted to nothing but writing…

..and around 9am, Lin would appear with her laptop, patiently indulging me as I photographed her…appreciating both her beauty and the challenge of working with hard front light without letting my own shadow interrupt it.

Enjoying The Snow

One of the most peaceful ways to begin a day is stepping out early while snow is falling. In Maryland, it only happens a few times a year, which makes it feel even more sacred. Anytime the forecast hints at snow, I’ll set my alarm a little earlier and peek through the window, hoping. This morning, it delivered.

Not long after getting home, I woke Lin, made us some coffee, and coaxed her out onto the porch with me…to brave the cold and take in the beauty of the snowfall together.

Morning Light Study

Every morning, somewhere between 6:30 and 7am, the sun slips through the blinds. Most of these photos look nearly the same at first glance, but I’m drawn to the differences; the way the light reflects, bounces, changes colors, softens, hardens, and eventually gives itself back to shadow.

Baltimore Filmmakers Meetup

About three years ago, I was seeking some local filmmaking community in Baltimore so I invited a few friends (and their friends) to a brewery. The simple “no agenda” meetup has evolved into what is now @baltimorefilmmakers which is co-led by my friends Franki, Mei, and myself. We’ve recently partnered with Wide Angle Youth Media and continue to do monthly meetups. These are just a handful of pictures from our most recent meetup.

Snow Day

There is no better feeling then looking out the window right after waking up and seeing snow falling.

Finishing My Documentary

Spent the afternoon making the FINAL(!) dcp & surround sound mix with Matt Riggieri (who also graded “The Baltimorons”). IT’S FINISHED!

New York City

Spent two nights in NYC for a Nourish Community meetup and a men’s health podcast that I was invited to be a part of.

My Favorite Coffee

Baltimore Coffee & Tea Co. is my favorite coffeeshop in the area. I’m a big fan of flavored coffee’s and they have 6x flavors on tap. So I’ll usually take a book and a journal and just hang out for 2 hours and drink, read, and write.

Basement Treads

Lin teaches yoga a couple days a week in our basement, so we thought it would be a good idea to make the stairs a bit more safe. Problem solved. For now.

Dinner at Harolds

My Godfather Harold invited Lin and I over for some beef stew, and an education in his old record player.

New Years Reset

For the past few New Years, Lin, Pizza, and I have taken a long weekend trip to a town no more than a few hours from home. The intention is always simple: slow down, reflect, and get clear on how we want to enter the year ahead. This year we landed in Chestertown, MD, a small college town about an hour and a half away. It is a grounding mix of small town vibes and wide open nature along the Chester River. (The shed below was our AirBNB)

If I ever try to imagine heaven on earth, I think the pace would feel a lot like these New Years trips. It helps that emails tend to quiet down around the holidays, and I can feel my nervous system slowly recalibrating in real time. There is a kind of settling that happens. It is wonderful.

There were many standouts on this trip, most of them captured in the photos below. What is not pictured is a book I have returned to again and again, The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen, now for the fifth time. This most recent reading landed deeper than any before. Nouwen writes about the practices of solitude, silence, and prayer not as lofty ideals, but as lived realities that require space.

Being away (and unhurried) allowed his words to move from my head into something more embodied. That is often the challenge with spiritual books. When read in the middle of full, noisy weeks, their wisdom can feel abstract. Given time and quiet, though, something different happens. The words begin to take root.

“Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.” -Henri Nouwen

I came home from the weekend with a softer relationship to my own life. Photographing these moments and later returning to the images has become a simple ritual, helping me notice what I might otherwise pass by.

Artsy Selfie

First selfie of 2026! I’m gonna attempt to keep this artsy selfie thing going here.

Day After Christmas

The day after Christmas is also one of my favorite days of the year. The festivities have wound down, and it becomes a day of rest and recovery after a few days of nonstop eating, conversing, and more eating. The highlight for me was working out and sitting in the sauna at the YMCA for a long while, followed by listening to Lin play her new crystal bowls with Pizza.

Christmas Day 2025

It’s hard to believe another Christmas has already come and gone. As a result of recent changes I’ve made in my professional life, this one felt especially meaningful.

This was my first Christmas fully settled into my full-time work as a coach for filmmakers. While I’ve done this work in different forms for almost 8 years now, last year I chose to pursue it full time and continue growing my company Nourish. The shift showed up clearly in my body this holiday.

In past years, Christmas often arrived with my nervous system still wound tight from high-pressure film environments and the constant uncertainty of freelance filmmaking. Even in moments of joy, rest and presence were harder to access.

This year felt different. I felt grounded, regulated, and alive. The peace of the day was able to land, helped in no small part by Lin and me stepping away from the stimulation to take a few walks and even sneak in a midday nap.

I still find myself attached to my traditional filmmaking identity from time to time, but as I look at these photos and reflect on the last few days, I feel a deeper acceptance of who I am now and the work I’m building. Coaching filmmakers has brought me closer to myself. And I will always be a filmmaker at heart, practicing whether or not it pays the bills.

What I want most in life is pretty simple: to feel alive more often then not, to move at a pace that supports my nervous system, and to spend unhurried time with the people I love.

This Christmas feels like a quiet marker of a new season rooted in growth, integration, and faith.

Christmas Eve

The day started with a banana and a journal…

Christmas Eve has become one of my favorite days of the year. It’s one of very few days each year I give myself full permission to shut out all thoughts of work and just be present for the days ahead. In my family, we call this “The Bregel Blockout.” The phrase started with my dad years ago as his way of protecting his mind from unnecessary drama, stress, or unpleasantness. Somewhere along the way, I adopted it as a small but meaningful antidote to my own workaholic tendencies.

This morning I met up with my godfather, Harold, at one of my favorite coffee shops to ease into the day and spend time together before our weekly book study. Since COVID, Harold, his longtime college friend Jon, and I have met every Wednesday to read and reflect together. Today we decided to press pause on the book and talk instead about where we grew, and where we didn’t, over the course of 2025.

One thing that became clear to me is that I feel more confident in my voice than I ever have before. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one book that’s had a real impact on me is The Four Agreements. One of its core ideas, “Don’t Take Anything Personally”, has stayed with me. I’ve felt noticeably more fearless this year in expressing myself and simply being who I am, without trying to overly manage how it lands.

After our conversation, Harold pulled out boxes of old photos from a summer camp he worked at as a counselor in his twenties.

From there, I did some very last minute Christmas shopping for our neighbors and, of course, their pets. One of our neighbors has a cat named Sam who loves to sit outside our door until we let him in and feed him. We keep a stash of cat food just for him. Our dog Pizza, often tries to hump Sam, which understandably does not go over well. Sam slaps Pizza and hisses, and Lin and I laugh every single time.

The rest of the day included an open house at a family friend’s place, church with my family, dinner together, and now ending the night sitting in front of a fire, winding down, and writing this.

And that’s all I’ve got.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and the happiest of holidays. - Jon

Christmas Hot-Pot

Tonight we went to our favorite Chinese Hot-Pot restaurant to celebrate Christmas with my bestie Paige. Since the timezones are opposite of China, Lin’s family often joins us on facetime.

Self Portrait

I was showing my friend Paige my new “blog” the other day and she told me that I should post some photos of myself on occasion. Here’s one from this morning :)