Why we built CMP

The full story behind Cull Me uP — personal, not corporate. CMP exists to preserve attention, connection and meaning, and to help meaningful moments find their way back.

The beginning

I took the time to look.

For years, I carried boxes of slides from one move to the next. I knew they mattered. I just never took the time to look.

Then I did. I found pieces of my life waiting for me.

What was inside

I found pieces of my life waiting for me.

Inside those boxes were not only photographs. They were fragments of a life.

A Karl Lagerfeld fashion show photographed decades ago. The first photographs I had taken as a child. The world seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy holding a Zenith TTL given to him by his mother. Agate. Pussy. Places I had forgotten. Moments I had forgotten. Versions of myself I had forgotten.

Yet they had not forgotten me.

Photographer first

I've been a photographer longer than I've been an entrepreneur.

Photography has been part of my life for more than fifty years. Long before companies. Long before products. Long before investors.

Photography taught me attention. Patience. Observation. It taught me to see before pressing the shutter.

Thirty years building things that scale

Not everything scales.

I spent much of my life building systems that scale: networks, internet infrastructure, monitoring platforms, software used around the world.

But photography kept reminding me of something important. Attention does not scale. Judgment does not scale. Meaning does not scale. Human connection does not scale.

The problem is not editing. The problem is what happens before and after — the growing distance between the moment and the meaning.

I built something for that

Tools that help without taking over.

CMP was not born from a market study. It was born from a personal need. I wanted tools that were simple, beautiful, powerful and trustworthy — tools that reduce friction without replacing judgment.

So I built them.

Meaning is not lost. It waits. The photographs are there. The memories are there. The moments are there. Sometimes all that is missing is the time to look.

Companion, not replacement

Choose. Build. Grow.

CMP is not designed to replace photographers, and not designed to replace existing tools. It is designed to accompany — to help, to remember, to connect, to reduce noise, to preserve meaning — while your files, folders and decisions stay entirely yours.

The gaze · the voice · the gesture

Three places, one photographic path.

I shoot street, travel and editorial work. I also build software. The images, the words and the tool are separate for a reason — they speak to each other better when each has its own room.

Just a Moment is the gaze. jmp.net is the voice. Cull Me uP is the gesture: the tool, the Light Table, the practical movement of seeing, rejecting, keeping and preparing the work before editing.

If you want to talk about it

Reach out.

The best feedback comes from real folders, real shoots and real hesitation.

Image credits

Light Table heritage references.

Some analog light table references used on this site are credited to: Bruce Percy — brucepercy.co.uk · EMULSIVE — emulsive.org · Reddit / r/AnalogCommunity · Safe Light District — instagram.com/safelightdistrict. Used as visual references to explain the photographic light table concept; publication rights to be confirmed before public launch if required.