I’ve spoken about it briefly in my Instagram posts, but Meg and I have decided to leave our apartment in NYC this year, and it's for different reasons than you might think. For starters, we want to see what else is out there before we settle into a place for the long haul, but most importantly, we want to honor our values as a family. We love nature, time spent together, making things, and we want to focus on our health. The problem with our life in New York was that we only saw each other in passing because we were trying to build our schedules around our work while being fair to our dog. 2024 for us is about getting back to the most basic things that made us happy as children while still focusing on our careers.
Although that sounds all well and good, we’re three months into not having an apartment, and it is not as easy as we’ve anticipated. As I write this from a sublet in Brooklyn, NY, the cold hard fact is that we need money to live, and what place has more money than NYC in America? Not many.
Which brings me to my next point: a lot of people view NYC as a free ATM, like they can come here, try out for an acting gig, and get on Broadway, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I like to think of this city more like a piggy bank, where you need to deposit more than you’re taking out; otherwise, you’ll overdraft your account.
For example, the photos below were taken on a Sunday walk. I knew there was a soccer league where all of the teams were owned by brands, meaning the players were primarily owners, directors, designers, etc. So I wanted to walk by and grab a few shots. After about 20 minutes of shooting, I edited the photos the same night, posted them to my Instagram story, and tagged the companies. To my surprise, a bunch of them reposted my work, and some of them booked me for shoots in the following weeks.
This is why giving to your community is at the heart of NYC and at the core of finding new work. Anyone can sit on their computer and send emails all day, but someone told me when I was first starting out as a photographer, “Show, don’t tell,” which has been some of the most sage advice in my career. Although I think this advice leaves out an important detail that I’d like to amend: you have to use your skills to show and give back to those you want to work for. By taking these soccer photos, I didn’t ask any of the companies for work; instead, I just gave them a little gift, and people love good photos of themselves.
