I’m one of those lucky people who has always had an exciting, fulfilling career.
In my 20 years as a photojournalist, no two days were alike — I’d find myself riding in Secret Service motorcades, standing in front of walls of flames at wildfires and inside the lives and homes of some of the most interesting people in the world.
So when I say that the past two years have been the most fun I’ve ever had at work, it really means something.
In January 2024, we officially launched Uptown 11 Studios. That first year, I rode solo — building a few websites, forging some critical early partnerships, and selling the vision for a different type of creative agency: one that focused primarily on telling real stories about real people. I wanted to build a model that drew on the best lessons from the news world while leaving behind many of its cultural and financial shortcomings.
At the start of 2025, we became a team and moved into a small office in North Park. With a handful of clients, we dedicated ourselves to telling stories about San Diego through their eyes.
Here’s a bit of what’s happened in the past year:
And we’re still growing. This month, we added Ana Ramirez to our team as a Senior Visual Storyteller, bringing our staff to 5. She’ll help us tell stories by land, by air and by sea.
We quickly discovered that San Diego’s community organizations needed help with documentary-style video. We trudged through the pouring rain to learn how the Downtown San Diego Partnership was helping the city’s unhoused population, we hiked miles through Girl Scouts summer camp to learn about how they overcome obstacles, and we pored over hours of interview footage, pulling the perfect moments that summed up our partners’ stories with sight and sound.
Just this week, we learned that our video with the Downtown San Diego Partnership, produced in partnership with Intesa Communications Group, earned us our first Public Relations Society of America’s Bronze Bernays Award for video production.
Many of our partners, from the Children First Collective to Girl Scouts, are committed to healthy, equitable futures for San Diego’s kids. We proudly supported their work by uplifting the voices of their team members, fellow advocates and, of course, the kids who call this town home. In one of our rowdiest video productions of the year, we asked local kids themselves how to build a better child care system, and debuted the video at Voice of San Diego’s Politifest.
One of our favorite things is watching our partners’ work intersect. As we always say, this is a big city and a small town.
In November, we worked with the great Checka Sardina, who documented Barrio Logan’s Dia de Muertos event on behalf of the Barrio Logan Association. With San Diego Foundation as the presenting sponsor, Uptown worked with our partner Safelight Labs to publish an in-depth feature of Sardina’s work on the Developing Stories blog (read more about that blog in Axios SD).
In 2025, we told stories on behalf of Adams Avenue Business Association, Barrio Logan Association, Children First Collective, 365 Connect, San Diego and Imperial Research Hub, Mesa College, Girl Scouts San Diego, YMCA of San Diego County, Intesa Communications, Camera Exposure, La Jolla Country Day School, San Diego Community Power, Arts District Liberty Station, Specialty Food Association, Tijuana River Coalition, San Diego Foundation and more.
You should take a peek at the brand book right here. It’s by Samra Jean Lovelady, who was also featured for her beautiful travel photography on Developing Stories.
Here’s a bit of what we saw in 2025.
