The End of the Myth
I landed in New York City on Labor Day Weekend, 2015. Took me 4 days of 12 – 15 hours a day driving and quite the adventure. Eye-opening. Beautiful and a whole lot of open space. Montana and Wyoming were just stunningly beautiful. Well, every place was. I got a fun little story that you may recognize…. I almost forgot about it…
I was driving through Indiana on a sunny day in the middle of the day. Highway was largely empty. Then, an attractive woman drives up to me in a convertible Ferrari! Out of nowhere! It was hilarious! She smiled and we waived at each other! Just like in the movies!
I’m going to give some quick blurbs of my landing in New York City. I was stupid and didn’t know I would arrive the day before Labor Day weekend. Couldn’t get an apartment for weeks leading up my arrival. I didn’t want to spend a fortune on a hotel room so I spent a few nights in my car until I eventually got a room from a person on Airbnb.
My first NYC room. It was actually nice. Had AC!
PSA: Do not rent a room and share an apartment from someone in New York City unless you knew them well before moving out. Get your own place. It wouldn’t be too long before I knew I love the people of New York City. But on the bottom-end, which are the ones usually renting rooms so the renter will pay most of their rent, are some of the strangest and worst people I have ever met. Which is why they have to advertise their rooms on Craigslist. They don’t have a friend-network to rent to or anyone who knows them, won’t live with them. Word.
I experienced serious culture shock the first few weeks in NYC. It’s improved a lot since I moved here, but NYC is generally seriously filthy. There is definitely an energy in NYC that you may or may not feel. I certainly did. It can be overwhelming and you either love it or not. I love it.
With all the commotion of finding a place to live and getting settled in my day-job, I forgot about New York Fashion Week! It started a week after I arrived! Reminded by accident actually. So I found some of the shows and decided to see how all this worked….
Obviously I was not able to get inside to any of the shows. But I photographed the attendees who of sometimes made some great subjects to photograph. Honestly, many were fashion bloggers and the ‘industry-professionals’ were much more modestly and professionally dressed. They didn’t want to stand out. NYFW after all is a trade show.
What I would come to find out is that NYFW, or IMG, would have a model appear and pose for the photographers outside the show. For several shows and years, I’ve seen models appear for photographers and they have been AMAZING. With the 5 minutes or so I would photograph this lady, I got about 20 fantastic, editorial quality images! That’s probably the first, real surprise on multiple levels: the talent in New York is on another level. Several.
I think this was the last time I believed in the myth of the New York fashion photography scene.
