There are several questions I am asked more often than others.  People always want to know if the lightning is real (it is), whether the scene on the el station was staged (it was) and whether I placed this chair where it is (I did not).  However, one question I am asked moreso than any other is what the meaning is behind the company name: Twenty Seven and a Half.

The answer is comical, stupid or some combination thereof.

When I began to get serious about my photography in 2010, I realized that I’d need a company name.  Since I’d spent my twenties interview celebrities and writing about the experiences, I couldn’t use my name.  A quick Google search of my name would turn up a million plus hits to articles I’d written, so that was out.  While pondering this matter, I set two rules in place: 1) The name couldn’t already be in use somewhere, and 2) I didn’t want to have to have a website name with the word ‘photography’ in it.  If I wanted to call my company Apple Photography, I wanted to register apple.com.  I then made a list of 52 words and names I liked.  Somehow, all 52 violated one or both of the two rules I’d made.  It was all very discouraging.

Weeks went by with no progress.  I began losing hope.  One day, my brother came out to my place and we walked to get some dinner.  On the way home, he asked me how the name search was going.  I shook my head and told him I was getting close to just pointing at something and calling the company that.  “I’m going to look at something like that address there,” I said, “Twenty Seven and a Half.  That’ll be the name.  Twenty Seven and a Half Photography.”

My brother looked at me and said, “You know, that’s actually kind of catchy.”  And it was.  And it satisfied the two criteria I’d set for my name search.  Just like that, the company was named.

This is the door I happened to be looking at during my ‘eureka’ moment.  It all started here.