STREET PHOTOGRAPHER, NYC

New York is a galaxy of the self-made, and the audience for standout individuality is the street. Attitude is a narrative. Personal sway becomes self-confidence encased in a pose. In almost every encounter, each person in this collection was seen alone, giving something in the way they wore their clothes - making space for worship and placing themselves on view as if their distinctiveness embodied exile and involved a kind of elevated, yet natural, separateness. Every time, the power of their entrance into my purview seemed to clear the frame of everything around them, possessing a level of performance that demands complete attention. The only thing I had to do was capture the magnificence of these New Yorkers in that moment in all their fabulousness, originality, verve and glory.

I have photographed people en route, wearing their own clothes in their own way for over two decades. Somewhere between the gleam of glam editorials and grit of New York street style, each individual poses as if every day is an occasion. These New Yorkers are real style raconteurs whose outfits align with a true sense of self. Their style is undeniable, but is taken a step further by making something unseen, visible.  For me, the sartorial potency of these portraits draws the eye, but imagined dialogues and conjured scenarios may also surface.  Within these chance encounters in New York’s distant and not so distant past, an inner and outer splendor is harnessed with a whisper saying, “This is me.”