Over the next few weeks, members of the Worn & Wound team will offer their own personal reflections on their year in watches. Today, photographer Garrett Jones on turning his enthusiasm into a full time job in the watch industry, and acquiring his grail watch.

The last year has been a wild ride, from meeting and joining the team here at Worn & Wound, reaching new heights among the Canadian Rockies, and even buying my long time watch grail, the Omega Speedmaster. I think it’s safe to say that each of these events on their own were major milestones, but the fact that this all happened within the last year is truly mind blowing. 

In December of 2023, I flew from NYC to Austin, TX to hang out with some friends, and meet the Worn & Wound team. Unknowingly, this trip to Texas would begin a months-long journey resulting in me joining the team full time, something  I couldn’t have dreamed of in my wildest imagination. Just about a month after this meeting, I’d have my first article published on the blog, and several more would come out before I joined the team fulltime in May. While most people might feel nervous as they start a new job, I’ve never felt so excited (and nervous) as I did, especially since my “first” day was flying out to San Francisco for the Windup Watch Fair. At that point, I’d already met most of the team, and even worked with a few of them, but this would be the first time I got to truly “dive in” and work alongside everyone. Despite being a “fair of firsts” (my first fair as an employee, our first fair in a new space, our biggest fair yet), it went wonderfully and was an eye opening experience to the scale of things that were on the horizon. I thought I was excited to join the team beforehand, but I was absolutely  buzzing with excitement coming out of San Francisco.

After returning from California and getting into the swing of things, I found myself obsessed with learning everything I could about the micro-brand watch industry and what made it so special. I’ll admit, I’m still working on memorizing all of the details, but my overall knowledge of watch movements, complications, and general tidbits has drastically improved. Alongside this learning experience, I’d find myself working with a number of brands on various projects, pushing me to learn new skills and truly master existing ones in the realm of photography. Since joining the team, I’ve traveled internationally for press coverage, wrote several articles, and produced countless assets for the Windup Watch Shop and our partner brands, many of which are still in use. I’ll frequently see one of my images on various social media sites, and it puts a smile on my face each time I do.

As I’m writing this article, there’s still a few weeks left in December, but the highlight of my year has already been determined: finally obtaining my grail watch. The journey to acquire this watch began years ago, while I was working towards my college degree (and working full time). I promised myself that if I stuck through everything and graduated, I’d go out and buy my grail watch to mark my achievements and serve as a reminder of all the hard work put in.  As some of you might know, this “grail” was the historic Omega Speedmaster. Despite working full time, I wasn’t in any position to buy a luxury watch then, especially not one with a price tag hovering around $5,000 for the specific reference I was looking for.

As time went on, I kept remembering this promise I’d made to myself and knew that I had to make it come true, which brings us to October of this year. As most watch enthusiasts do, our team likes to talk about our watch collections, pieces we have our eyes on, and what watch we have as a grail. Through these conversations, it became quite well known that I was hunting for a Speedy, but that the right one just never seemed to come along. As if the stars aligned, I had finally committed myself to pulling the preverbal trigger on a purchase when our CEO, Blake Malin, was looking to sell his personal Speedmaster. Over the course of a few days, we ironed out a great deal, and I could officially say that I owned my grail. Since buying the Speedy, it’s been on my wrist almost daily as I try to find a strap combination that looks bad. I guess there’s a reason everyone calls this watch a “strap monster,” as it just goes with everything. True to my tool watch loving self, I gravitate towards nylon straps but also love the opportunity to sport a two piece leather when I need to dress it up a bit. Thankfully those opportunities are plentiful as there’s always something going on in the city, watch related or not.

At the end of the day, I’m blown away by the opportunities I’ve had so far, and excited to keep working on some amazing projects with the team we’ve put together here at Worn and Wound. As an enthusiast, I think this year was full of great releases and awesome events, but getting the opportunity to to help produce some of these events, document stories for brands, and create content that tells a story is what makes it truly special. I might still have a lot to learn, but I’m ready to continue diving deeper into this wonderful industry I now get to work in.