In December, I had the pleasure of working with T.J. Miller and attending his show at the Houston Improv. It had been a while since I laughed that hard—it was exactly what I needed. If you haven’t seen T.J. perform, I highly recommend it.

The night before our shoot, we had a quick chat to finalize ideas and the schedule. T.J. suggested a Christmas tree lot as the location, but I quickly realized that tree lots are few and far between in Houston. Luckily, I found Trinity Tree Lot that evening and got in touch with them. They were incredibly accommodating and allowed us to use their space for the shoot.

We had just under an hour to set up and capture everything before T.J.’s show. It was a fast-paced shoot, but we managed to get everything done, plus one additional shot on the street. Big thanks to my wife for assisting on the shoot and helping make it all happen.

All the shots were taken with the Nikon Z8. This was my first shoot with the Z8, and I couldn’t be more impressed. My Nikon D800E was an amazing camera, but the Z8 takes everything I loved about it and improves upon it in every way.