Ours started on a high-speed chairlift in the middle of summer in northern California.

A liftie, visibly disgruntled to be working – maybe because it was a Saturday, or because it was early, or just because he drank too many Coors the night before – grunted at the two of us to sit together on the same dew-covered chair. We did as we were told, hoping to make it to the top for the finish of a VK race we were separately covering.

In that six minute ride we went from total strangers to realizing we were rival photographers to early-stage business partners. Hey, what can we say, a lot can happen when you bond over mutual friends (shoutout Ryan Thrower) and a deep dislike of French photogs who think they are better than everyone else.

But, our main point of connection was something bigger: a white space we both saw in the industry. A need for a lot less talking and a lot more doing. A return to the essence of why we do this work – to make stuff that’s real.

So, we agreed to create a fake agency that made real things. We’d skip all the formal crap and throw out all the rules and build a smoke-and-mirrors website (this one), and instead pour our energy into solving real problems and creating stuff that actually mattered. We’d pretend to have a high-end studio and a bunch of employees and a ton of fancy camera gear until someone called our bluff. A shell game until we were proved wrong. So far, so good.

Bottom line, we don’t believe in bullshit. We value hard work and long days and bold goals. We love projects with gritty characters and big unknowns and shitty weather and noisy narratives to sort out. We’re happy when stuff goes wrong, because that’s when the magic usually happens. We believe in moonshot ideas and half-baked plans, because we’ve refined a creative process that builds stories from the ground up, not one that forces them into boxes they don’t belong. And, we like clients who love these things, too.

If that sounds like you, shoot us a note. We’d love to have you join the conspiracy.