Back in September of 2007, I had a random idea that at the time felt small, almost like a little personal experiment. I was using a Kyocera Jet cell phone, which by today’s standards might as well have been a potato with a camera on it, but it planted the seed for what has quietly become one of my favorite long-term projects.
The original idea was simple:
Take a picture with everyone in my phone contacts.
At the time I remember thinking to myself, “If I know someone well enough to have their phone number, I should be able to get their picture too.” It seemed logical. Phone number equals real person. Real person equals photo opportunity.
But after thinking about it for a bit, the idea evolved.
Instead of taking a picture of the people in my contacts, it suddenly made more sense to take a picture with them.
That small change completely transformed the project.
Because once I thought about it that way, the next step came almost instantly:
Why stop at just my contacts?
If I know someone — a friend, a coworker, a teammate, a family member, someone from my past, someone I haven't seen in years — why not try to get a photo with them too?
And just like that, the goal became:
Take a picture with as many people that I know as possible.
But the real meaning behind the project came less than a year later.
In June of 2008, one of my best friends, David Woodman, passed away.
Two months before he died, I had taken a picture of him on that same Kyocera Jet phone. But I never got the chance to take a picture with him individually for what would later become the Ultimate Photo Album.
I had already come up with the idea for the project while he was still alive.
But life doesn’t always give you the timing you expect.
After David passed away, that missed photo stayed with me.
For a long time, I wondered if the project had quietly turned into something else. I started questioning my own motivation behind it. Part of me thought maybe I was trying to fill a void that could never really be filled.
Was I trying to somehow make up for the one photo I never got?
Was I taking pictures with everyone else because I couldn’t take that one?
At times, I honestly worried that maybe the whole thing was selfish.
But eventually, I realized something important — and unfortunately, it was a lesson that came the hard way.
You never know when you’re seeing someone for the last time.
Not in a dramatic way. Not in a way that announces itself.
Sometimes the last time you see someone just feels like another normal day.
And sometimes, a photo ends up being one of the only things you have left to look back on.
That realization changed how I looked at the project.
The photos weren’t about replacing a moment I missed.
They were about making sure I didn’t miss the moments that were still possible.
That’s why the picture matters.
Every single time.
The First Wave
The earliest photos in the project — what I now call the first wave — were taken with a digital camera.
Those photos all have a very specific look to them. They’re almost all horizontal, which was just the natural way people held cameras at the time.
And perhaps most importantly…
I still had hair on my head.
Which, for the record, I miss to this very day.
But that’s part of the fun of looking back through them. The photos don’t just capture the people I took them with — they capture the era too.
The Current Wave
Fast forward to today, and the current wave of photos are all taken with my iPhone.
And like most photos taken on phones now, they’re almost always vertical.
There’s another noticeable change too.
The hair that once lived on the top of my head has now migrated south and taken up permanent residence on my face in the form of a full beard.
So when you flip through the album, you can actually watch the transformation happen in real time.
Hair on head → hair on face.
Life comes at you fast.
When the Album Became an Album
For years, all of these photos lived digitally on my computer.
Folders. Files. Organized, sure — but still just digital pictures.
And eventually I had a realization.
I can’t call this thing “The Ultimate Photo Album”…
…and not actually have a photo album.
That felt like a pretty big oversight.
So I went to my local CVS, printed every single photo, bought a physical album, and started placing them inside.
And honestly, that’s when the project really came to life.
Seeing them as real photographs instead of files on a screen completely changed the experience.
Now it actually feels like something you can hold. Something you can flip through. Something you can revisit years from now in the exact same form.
Even better, the album I bought has slots for both horizontal and vertical photos.
Which creates an immediate visual contrast when you flip through it.
The first wave: horizontal photos, younger me, hair still on my head.
The current wave: vertical photos, taken with an iPhone, and the hair now firmly living on my face instead.
It unintentionally turned into a timeline.
Of technology.
Of friendships.
And apparently, of my hairline.
18½ Years Later
Now here we are 18½ years later.
Even with more than a decade where I put the project on the back burner, the album now contains photos with 243 different people — and that’s not even counting group photos.
Two hundred and forty-three individual people who at one point stood next to me and said, “Sure, let’s take a picture.”
And that’s the part that still amazes me.
I genuinely can’t believe how many people have said yes.
There have been times where I reached out to someone thinking, “There’s no way they’re even going to respond.” Maybe we hadn’t talked in years. Maybe I felt like the request was a little weird. Maybe I figured they’d just ignore the message.
But I also knew something else.
If I didn’t ask, I’d always wonder.
And every time I took that chance and asked anyway…
They said yes.
Every single one of them.
The Project Keeps Evolving
Because so many years have passed since the earliest photos were taken, the project has recently started evolving in another really fun way.
Not only am I still actively pursuing brand new photos for the album…
I’ve also started reaching back out to people that I already took a picture with years ago.
When I see them again, I bring our original photo with me and ask them to sign it.
Then after they sign it, we take a brand new picture together.
It creates this amazing full-circle moment.
One photo capturing the moment from years ago…
A signature acknowledging that moment…
And a brand new photo capturing where we are now.
It’s become one of my favorite parts of the whole project.
And in a weird way, it also solved a regret I had for years.
I never bought any of the yearbooks when I was in school.
Which meant I never got the chance to have classmates sign them like everyone else did.
But now?
Having people sign the photos we took together has basically turned this into something even better.
It’s become my Ultimate Yearbook.
Why It Matters
This project doesn’t really have an ending.
There’s no final number. No finish line. No moment where I can say, “Alright, I’m done.”
Because as long as I keep meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, or crossing paths with someone I haven’t seen in years…
The album can keep growing.
And after nearly two decades, that little idea that started with a Kyocera Jet phone camera in 2007 is still going.
But more importantly, it became something else too.
It became a reminder.
A reminder to take the picture.
A reminder not to assume there will always be another opportunity.
A reminder that moments with people matter more than we realize while we’re in them.
The Ultimate Photo Album is now dedicated to David Woodman.
Because while I never got the individual photo with him that I wish I had…
His memory is the reason the project means as much as it does.
And after all these years, I’m still amazed that 243 different people have said yes to being part of it.
It’s pretty incredible what can grow out of a simple idea.
Especially when people are willing to take a picture with little old me.
As always, thanks for reading this folks!
Let's do it again next week!
