I jump on the F train and take it to the edge of Brooklyn– passed Avenue X, passed Neptune Avenue– all the way to Coney Island and Stillwell Avenue where salt water seeps into and intoxicates my pores. 23rd street and Surf Avenue is a barren block with only two four story high tenements, a garage, and gated off areas of visceral and forgotten earth stretching between everything and leading to the boardwalk. The mermaids and the captains, the pirates, the seamen, the dancers, the prancers, the drinkers, the artists, the nudes, the locals and the foreigners all descend upon Coney Island for The Mermaid Parade, a day long celebration of the summer. On 23rd and Surf, they prepare themselves. They paint their bodies, they make their costumes, they drink, they dance and look at each other, they mingle and get ready, smoke, kiss, laugh. The parade pre party builds up and crescendos with marching bands and carnival barkers until the roar of the parade falls forward into motion and begins. I follow. Camera in hand. >>Coney Island Mermaid Parade, 2016
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The Chen wedding was on City Island in the Bronx. A life long New Yorker and still there are places I am going for the first time. I jumped into my car in Brooklyn and drove down Eastern Parkway to the Jackie Robinson Expressway where I sped through zigs and zags emerging onto the White Stone Bridge and then finally, an hour and a half later, City Island. I arrived early. Met the bride and groom, walked around the space, unloaded my gear, set up and started to photograph. There are so many cultural components to being a wedding photographer that one has to be sensitive to. I love photographing action and events and making visual narratives out of candid moments. Most of the people at the wedding, especially the elderly, were from Taiwan. As soon as I would point my camera at a group of people they would freeze up, stiffen out, pause their candid moment, look at the camera sternly, a kind of pose, and then continue. It made my job difficult. I just photographed more. Then I started to feel like people were turning their backs on me. I spoke with people, asked people to pose, directed […]
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