2025 was an amazing year for the EYECAM Brand for so many reasons, Gotham Glamour: Our debut NYFW event, A massive MEGASHOOT 11 in Philadelphia, massive accomplishments and tons of new souls and faces reached in what was expected, at least by me to be a spectacular follow up to 2024. I would say personally, we set the bar higher AGAIN this year and now can look forward to 2026 in what will be a memorable year for many reasons that I will go into below.

I want to start off this blog by thanking everyone who has been to one of our events this year, last year or any year for that matter. These events would not be as popular without you and your continued support. Truly from the bottom of my heart thank you for being there for me - some of you may never know how much it really means to me.

We can begin the lookback here, where the year really began - in 2024, House of Horrors 2.

At the conclusion of that event, I looked around a packed room over in FD Studios and saw so many beautiful faces full of excitement and also saw a good amount of people who were exhausted after being in costume for 4 hours. I made an announcement regarding our first event of 2025, the first time we would ever take a step into the world of what would be New York Fashion Week, Gotham Glamour was officially announced. People were so happy, I got to look at all their faces as the video played and I felt so good knowing the support for this new chapter was absolutely there!

However, Gotham Glamour took around 6 months to plan - which is why our 2025 really starts in 2024. Gotham Glamour took place on February 5th 2025, with official preparations beginning in August 2024.

Gotham Glamour, it meant so much to me to just have the ability to do a show again, but to do a show that had 60 models from around the globe (some flying in for the event from places like Brazil & Sweden) and have a crowd of 110 amazing people - was something I never expected to see. When the doors closed that night, we had over 180 beating hearts in one room for what was & still is the largest EYECAM event in history. What meant more to me though - If I'm being honest is for the first time I had my family in attendance, my full family - that was absolutely the best part of the night for me. Getting to hug my family after the show ended, having so many hands Shaked & babies foreheads kissed (metaphorically) this was a moment in time for me.

Was it perfect from start to finish? Objectively I say yes, of course, because I had my hands on it and for me that's enough of a reason for it to be great. However, we had some challenges to overcome & I set myself on a track to correct it all at the sequel - later that / this year - more on that later. But a theme to keep in mind with who I am / how I like to move is if i can do it better, trust your bottom dollar I WILL DO IT BETTER. I chase the feelings of sweet dopamine and adrenaline leading up to and after an event and to have the ability to say we have accomplished so much (to this point) motivated me to want to take on the new laundry list of things that needed to be fixed should we do another NYFW event in 2025.

However, from one massive event - to another, up next was the biggest challenge that was 1 year in the making - MEGASHOOT 11.

New here? Okay - quick recap.

In 2021, I began the events series with what was "EYECAM CHRISTMAS MEGASHOOTOUT". I never intended to do 2 events, let alone 20 events (which is where we are currently at). My honest to God goal was to have a place to take some nice Christmas photos with some friends / people who wanted to do the same. At the time, I had a deal in place to use The NINE Studios in Brooklyn for the events and my personal shoots so I figured this would be the best time do this.

Fast forward, 9 MEGASHOOTs later & I found myself looking at what would be the first 10 event anniversary of the event that started it all, MEGASHOOT X (10 in roman numerals is X). How the heck was I going to make this the biggest event? Easy, make it two days and in two states - Part 1 / Day 1 in Philadelphia & Part 2 / Day 2 in Brooklyn NYC where it began. Crazy, I know - crazily enough we did it & sold out both days and had 60+ creatives in attendance over two days and hundreds of miles of distance. So the bar was A SKYSCRAPER FOR ME - by my own fault.

I gave MEGASHOOT 11, a full year to bubble and boil in my brain and decided the city of brotherly love was so good to us for MEGASHOOT X, we would absolutely go back for seconds in 2025.

EYECAM STAFF Member, friend of the family and personal good friend of mine, Cori, connected me with the good folks over at NOVALIGHT STUDIOS and after a few conversations we inked a deal to bring the event officially back to Philadelphia in April 2025. The bar was 60 people, In my mind I told myself, "Daniel, 61 people is a win, lets get that and let God handle the rest". I prayed, I believed in myself that I could & would beat that number and sure enough - MEGASHOOT 11 brought in a massive attendance of over 75 creatives - FOR ONE EVENT.

My mind was blown, so so many good things were said to me that day - so many people came to me and said "you are the man" "You pulled it off" "I love these events so much". I would have loved to have just watched, taken a moment to take a breath and see what it was like to just see what all of these people looked like in one space. I powered through the event on 2 hours of sleep and well over 24 awake because damn guys, this means THAT much to me. MEGASHOOT 11, left a beautiful taste in my mouth so to speak, in many ways it was the perfect send off for the series, kind of like the SpongeBob SquarePants movie being the perfect end - yet they continued episodes.

I knew MEGASHOOT 12, now realizes he is the FINAL BOSS - the MEGASHOOT where we pull in 100 members in either one day or over two days or maybe three days - I kid, only I know what we are doing about that but trust me, IT WILL BE MASSIVE.

Took some time to love my life, take a breath and think about the beaches. Remembered, oh yeah - Summer Beach Party 3.

What haven't I done to this point - I have not spread the good word of EYECAM into Long Island... Tag, you are it Long island.

I wanted to challenge myself however, I decided I would add to this new challenge of Long Island and & add myself to the sock drawer of trying to be a designer for NYFW - Enter the VENYX brand.

So, we tried something brand new for Gotham Glamour, smashed it.

Tried something difficult for MEGASHOOT 11 in clearing 60 creatives in one day, smashed it.

Lets keep the ball going and go somewhere brand new & at the same time lets add in the added pressure of now bringing my first ever attempt at being a designer to the plate at Summer Beach party 3.

How did it go? We smashed it lol.

Another amazing crowd of nearly 50 creatives over 9 hours, the LONGEST EYECAM EVENT EVER, packed up a beautiful sunken meadows beach in Long Island for the third installment of SUMMER BEACH PARTY. This event welcomed new faces and returning faces from MEGASHOOT, the pro wrestling scene, cosplayers and even some well known models who are loved with the EYECAM family from Maryland. It was a beautiful melting pot of my timeline, it was really a moment where I took it in to say "I was there". Could you believe me if I told you, 19 events and this was the first time I was able to do this?

I am blessed, truly from the bottom of my heart. I am a person who has had significant emotional struggle, deals with a lot of anxiety problems, regularly has mood swings and little fun fact about me - I have had two doctors tell me "It is a miracle you are alive right now after what has happened to you". I don't take these statements in passing, they travel with me to every event, every smile and every handshake, every moment I spend out on Instagram growing my connections I keep those thoughts in mind and remind myself that there are universes where the blood clot did finish the job - the depression I felt after losing loved ones and close relationships did push me one step off the balcony - my sister never opened her door and my own car would have rolled right over my body. But not here, not this version of me.

I have to, I owe it to all of those tomorrow's that never came to right the wrongs and get through everything I place in front of myself.

So, in good EYECAM Tradition, on the way home from Summer Beach Party, what enters my mind - How the hell am I going to pull of my next NYFW event - VYCE with two months of prep time & a brand new challenge to tackle as VYCE would be fully produced and created by the EYECAM events team.

Jesus, it was ALOT.

July, August - they came and went. I said no to personal trips and fun to fund into what was the opportunity for me to RIGHT any wrong I needed to from Gotham Glamour while still putting time into making this feel authentic to me.

Survey Says - Yeah, we did it & yeah we smashed it too.

Something felt different though.

We welcomed nearly 80 models across the entire evening, and had around 60 members of the crowd plus a fully sold out media pit putting us around 150 people in one location - absolutely stunning. World class designers, RUNWAY 7 elite models and the debut of an exclusive lineup in VENYX were alongside the feeling of wow - we did it, and we grew from what was a small pebble in Gotham Glamour. I took another moment at the end of the night to just take this moment in, breathe in what it was like to finally be done with what would be the most expensive event I have ever created - with the best payout possible. I took the moment to thank my family, the media team and those who came to the event and as I turned the microphone off I realized something that I had been putting off to a far corner of my mind for about 2 years - I lost the love for doing this for fun, and in place of doing of for fun - the need to make money has taken its place.

What is so bad about that? Money is good! It is, but its not why I started this. If you are still reading, this is where it gets to what comes next.

(take a break, get some water).

"Don't let em say you aint beautiful, they can all get fucked just stay true to you". - Eminem, Relapse.

No, I do not mean "they" means you, they in this matter responds to so much more than people. It connected itself to all of my anxiety, it connected itself to all of the what if scenarios that played out in my head, all the bridges I have not crossed for the love of EYECAM. In that love, I put me to the side, I put Daniel - second place one to many times that Daniel now is separate from EYECAM. The marriage of the creative and the passion, was now gone and in its place sat a man named EYECAM who just sees "what else can I do to become larger". It became clear to me that after everything was said and done with VYCE, I felt upset that there was 5 empty seats at the end of the night during my speech, there was not a standing ovation, there was nothing to send ME home feeling accomplished. Crazy right? Especially after reading all of this.

Those thoughts can truly go fuck themselves, they cause so much chaos in my mind - they make a rainy day a monsoon.

I have so much to be proud of, not only in 2025 but in the last four years. I have traveled to states and sold out shows, I have made connections across the pond in Paris, made motions in moving forward in my career both professionally and personally and so so much more. I truly have made an impact in the lives of so many people, given them platforms to be real and themselves, given opportunities to those who usually wouldn't have them. I could not be happier than I am right now, as Daniel, to say we did what we did in such a way that people across the globe know what we have done and what we have accomplished in these past 4 years.

For EYECAM, lately he has been hard to reach. He has been too long on his own, but through thinking, prayer and some downtime for necessary updates he will come back for one more round of events next year before we both hang up the cape on the series.

In case you haven't, reach out to the quiet ones in your group, reach out to those who you feel "are strong, they got this" sometimes even the strongest souls can break and when they do it can take a long time for them to come to a reality check - which can often be too intense.

Until our next chat, with support and positivity.

Daniel / EYECAM.