A Photographer's Desk Setup, Two and a Half Years In

This desk has been my workspace for two and a half years now, and I just grabbed some fresh photos of it. These are real shots — no AI, no renders — and yeah, it's tidy, but that tidiness is intentional. I actually used a spirit level to line everything up, not just eyeballed it. The whole thing works because the room and the gear are equally important to how it all functions.

Wood Wall, Slatted Light

The back wall is wood paneling that runs the full width of the desk. There's a window to the left with venetian blinds that throw hard horizontal stripes of sunlight across the wood. A silver task lamp sits at the far end, warming up that corner, and next to it is a vase with bare branches and a mug. A gray mesh chair sits in front. Everything's aligned perfectly — and yeah, I really did use a spirit level to make sure nothing was even slightly off.

Two Screens, One Riser

The main monitor is a landscape display on an arm with a slim light bar across the top. Next to it, a portrait-oriented screen shows image thumbnails, while the wide screen handles architecture and city work. Below both is an iPad on a stand at a reading angle, and aluminum risers hold a shelf right over the middle of the desk. That's the trick — putting the tablet and second monitor on risers keeps the actual surface in front of the keyboard completely open for working.

Within Arm's Reach

Everything sits on a black felt desk mat. There's a mechanical keyboard with cream keycaps, one orange Escape key, and yellow and teal accents along the top right. The modifier keys — Control, Option, Command — are printed right on the caps in macOS order. My white mouse is to the right, and on the left is a translucent editing controller with a central dial and joystick. Stacked around them: art and design books, a roll of tape, and a mug for coffee.

Editor's Notes & Summary

After two and a half years, this desk got re-photographed, not rebuilt. Same wall, same lines, same obsession with getting everything perfectly aligned.