Breathing in Brooklyn
Standing at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side at 5:45 in the morning. There’s a deafening silence except for the constant buzz of traffic below that all blends together like a sound machine next to the bed that is likely still warm from the short night of sleep that just ended. There are two police offers sipping coffee beside a tiny three wheeled car that allows them to drive back and forth across the bridge if anything happens and the bigger Italian one has a loud enough laugh that it breaks through the dampening sound of the first few drops of early winter mist. Not quite snow, not quite rain, definitely not sleet it hangs below the bridge painting the base of the Manhattan skyline like it is rising out of the clouds. It’s dusk which means all of the lights are still on across the bridge in Manhattan and just before the first few rays of the morning sun rip down the east river and cast shadows on the buildings behind them the last breaths of night time calmly exhale. It’s a remarkable thing feeling like you’ve found a secret place to hide in a city with 12 million people. Now imagine that your hiding place is one of the most iconic locations in the country and yet for every moment that brings daylight more into view another sound is added to your peripherals. A bike commuter pedals quickly up this side of the bridge ringing a bell on his handle bars as he comes up behind me, surprising me enough that I burn my tongue a bit with the bitter cup of coffee I bought a few moments before just beneath where I stand now. My phone dings to tell me that this amazing couple, who got married just yesterday at a tiny glass chapel in Bella Vista, Arkansas was walking out of their hotel and my direction. I know that my moments of silence are numbered and I take a quick minute to simply breath in the night air turning into morning rush. I’ve shot here before. I’ve shot this before. But each time there is something new about it and I simply want to be present - to tell this story well…
I experience something when I see photos that I have a hard time explaining. I see moments between people I didn’t live that sometimes I swear I can remember. I find an empathy for people through a photograph that I think is magnetic. Images teach us how love can look, but not always how it does. They teach us what beauty can be, but not all it is. They teach us what dreams may look like and even when they don’t come true images give us an express ticket to our own humanity. Sometimes I think as photographers we get lost trying to one up each other. Trying to remind ourselves that we are valued because of our eye for a moment but lately I’ve been really trying to see myself with more clarity than that. I do love love. I do love the giggles and flirty moments in front of me. I love the glitter sometimes and the light, airy kind of love that takes over a shoot in front of my lens but also - I want more. I want to learn how light can express love. I want to learn from the love stories that unfold in front of my lens. I want to express a location, a moment, a subject with as much passion for my camera as they have for each other. I want to know love better because I have a front row seat to it and then, armed with a million stories of love and hope and loss and pain and success and beauty I want to serve. I want to give what talent I have to another generation of artists, photographers, friends, family members, couples. I want to do my best to be my best - for them and if some day I’m blessed enough to be known for the work I have done and the art I have created, I want to be able to point that credit towards something much larger than myself and simply say “All I’ve ever done is breath in a moment in front of me and press the right button at the right time.” Cheers to light, art, love, and simply learning to be more than just an artist or friend or personality or brand - to being a blessing to the ones we serve and blessed by the opportunities to serve them.
