Adam Raabe

I love film photos, CountryPlans, my New York, building with Claude, dogs, kayaks and little boats, climbing, road trips, gardening, reference books and grandmacore.

From the Pacific Northwest, in New York for about twenty years. It’s pronounced Raw-bee.

Film photos

I started on film and developed slides in my first business, A Shot in the Dark Graphics. Now I’m scanning my great aunt Miffi’s slides, hundreds of them. See Miffi’s slides.

Black and white frame: two figures in silhouette against a pale wall — Two silhouettes, on my film.

Film strip edge: gray sky over rooftops and a church spire

Black and white frame: a tangle of light trails in the dark

Black and white frame: a room with a window and a light trail across it

Two frames of a shelf: books, figurines, a plant, a lamp — A shelf, two frames.

CountryPlans

My dad, John Raabe, spent decades helping people build small, simple homes. We built a cottage together. I keep CountryPlans going now.

A two-story wood house with a deep porch and a sunroom, in tall evergreens

A set of house plans spread out on a wood floor

My New York

Roosevelt Island, the ferry, the libraries and a good table by a window. Minus the subway.

Black and white frame: a city skyline with the Twin Towers in the distance — The Twin Towers, on my film.

Midtown Manhattan across the East River at sunset, the Queensboro Bridge on the left — From Roosevelt Island.

A white NYC Ferry boat at a pier, Midtown and the Chrysler Building behind it — The NYC Ferry.

A table by tall windows with an open notebook, legal pads and a laptop, the Manhattan skyline outside — A table by the window.

Building with Claude

I build and run my apps with Claude Code. It talks to me through SpeakySpeak, an app I made for that.

A desk in a warm corner: a big monitor full of terminal windows, a laptop below it, a lamp, a radio and baskets on the shelves — My desk, a few Claude Code windows open.

Dogs

Sarge and Yoshi. And Finn.

Sarge and Yoshi lying on a kitchen floor, Sarge laughing, a person's feet in flip-flops at the edge — Sarge and Yoshi on the kitchen floor.

Sarge, a white dog, in the snow, mouth open, looking up

Finn, a scruffy brown dog, lying in the sun on a patterned bedspread

Finn on a leash, walking a seaside path under blue sky

Finn on a leash in a grassy park, a suspension bridge in the distance — Finn by the bridge.

Two film frames of a black dog in a yard — Dogs, on film.

Kayaks and little boats

A red kayak pulled up on a sandy beach, a dock and calm water behind it — Pulled up on the beach.

Climbing

A climber in a blue shirt and harness, seen from behind, partway up a tall gym wall — Partway up the wall.

Road trips

A brown trailhead sign reading Old Ski Bowl Trailhead, Shasta-Trinity National Forest, with a snowy mountain behind it — The Old Ski Bowl trailhead.

Gardening

Succulents and cacti most of all.

A pot of small round cacti covered in bright pink flowers, seen from above — In bloom.

Black and white close-up of a spiky agave — An agave.

The red and yellow center of a bromeliad, close up — A bromeliad.

A row of clay pots with cacti and purple-leaved plants on a windowsill, string lights below, a water tower and snowy roofs outside — The windowsill, string lights on.

Reference books

Encyclopedias, field guides and the OED Miffi gave me, magnifying glass and all. They’re a big part of why I started everething.

The blue cover of The Tormont Webster's Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary, in gold letters — An encyclopedic dictionary.

A field guide open to a color plate of toucans and other tropical birds — A field guide, open to the toucans.

Grandmacore

Handwritten notes and old slides.

Two pages of an old handwritten notebook — Miffi’s notes.

A slide from Miffi's collection: a woman and a child by a lake — One of Miffi’s slides.

Art and sculpture

For about a decade I was James Turrell’s lead sculptor. I built models of his work in plaster, pigment and aluminum.

Clamps holding a thin curved white form against a full-size drawing, in striped sunlight — Clamps and a full-size drawing, in the shop.

Building things

I ran the finish work for Cross Architecture in New York for about a decade. Now I build things like this.

An early everething: a small screen standing upright beside a Raspberry Pi — An early everething, on a Raspberry Pi.