Writing anything about the end of Summer makes me extremely sad. It’s like being told recess is over when you were a kid. Nonetheless, professionally, my summer was pretty slow but I managed to get some work in and create some personal projects as well.
My summer got a off to great start with with an amazing trip to Istanbul, Turkeye in late Spring for a three day, chamber music series. On trips like these, I like to sharpen my documentary storytelling chops. Although I wasn’t hired to be there, I still captured a pretty special event and made a beautiful recap.
If you’ve ever spent anytime at any of the “The Ivy’s”, you know how magical their campuses are. Chanel Cathey, Founder & CEO of CJC Insights, brought me in to work on this project with one of her PR clients. This was filmed in mid Spring, so it wasn’t technically Summer, but I wrapped editing in May. Laurence Ralph is a professor and author at Princeton University. We spent the day with Ralph at Princeton documenting the day in the life of a professor. We captured an on camera interview, headshots and other assets that he’ll go on to use when he’s booked on TV segments and featured in articles. This was great project to work on with a really fascinating guy.
Community involvement has become a huge source of storytelling. For the past couple of years, I’ve created a series of videos for the Friends of Buswick Inlet Park. I’ve been documenting their Weeding Wednesday’s sessions as they do some pretty serious community gardening. This organization does incredible work in revitalizing and maintaining Williamburg’s water front park. I highly recommend everyone come out to volunteer at least once. I’ve also been know to make surprise visits with popsicles. If that’s not incentive show up, I don’t know what is.
The other community I’ve fallen in love with is the Dance is Life community. Every other Monday evening at sunset, Natasha Diggs and Abdiel, host the most beautiful dance party in NYC. It’s an amazing melting pot of every culture and background in a celebration of love and joy. For fours, everything is right in the world. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend.
Just last weekend, I had a fabulous photo shoot with the board members of The Debt Gala, an organization that raises money for people with medical debt. The organization is comprised of comedians, dancers, magicians, musicians and more. This was a fun time that will ultimately help a good cause. Since photography has never been my main thing, sometimes I forget I’m a decent photog.
Williamsburg has it’s own resident photographer and his name is Matt Eller. Matt has turned the corner of Berry & N 4TH into his own public art gallery and it’s awesome. Matt photographs people from the neighborhood and wheat paste them to the adjacent walls on that corner. I’ve documented his process and parties for the past couple of years and it’s a fun project to be a part of. Every neighborhood needs a guy like Matt.
Alex Corporan is one of the few people I’ve met when I first moved to the city that I’m still cool with. Although, I only ever see him in passing we always show each other love. Alex is one of the OG skate kids from the city from the early 90’s. Like literally kids because he was in the famous movie called Kids. Alex is an all around creative, author, designer and recently co-prodcued a new doc that just aired on ESPN called “Empire Skate” which is about the early days of skateboarding in NYC. I caught up with him and interviewed him on World Skate Day earlier this summer.
In late Spring, I caught up with artist, Heather Hutchison, who I profiled about eight years ago. Heather was having an art opening in Chelsea and I had the pleasure of interviewing her again. Heather is always a good interview and her work is always striking.
Back in May, Chanel Cathey, reached out to me again about working with another one of her clients. This time we would be cutting together a sizzle for Zeal Capital, a DC investment firm, to announce their $82 million raise. This was a challenging project because I would be making a video from mainly photos and not a lot of video. I think it turned out great. Zeal loved it and we will be working a second video in just a couple of weeks.
Pepcom has been of my favorite ongoing clients for over fives years now. They host events in NYC two to three times a year and they always reach out to me to document their trade shows. This is a recap video for their Spring Spectacular event.
And like usual, in my down time, I like to channel my inner Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist) with my fashion focused, street photography. This has been a great exercise in getting me up from my computer and keeping me creative while walking on average 6.5 miles a day.
Usually in the Fall, things pick back up. The vacations and summer Fridays are over so people are back to being serious. Hopefully, my phone will start to ring again. Until then, I’ll keep finding ways to stay creative.