A Year of Being a Freelancer

Plus a few photographs from NYC and new commercial work.

I hate neglecting this newsletter, but I haven’t had the headspace for it. Plus, it’s currently the “off-season” for street photography because I am not about to get a heat stroke during July and August. I wanted to hop on here and show maybe a few photographs I made in NYC in June, some new commercial work, and general updates.

I turned 31 this month, and it still feels weird to be in my 30s, but here we are. Last August was filled with changes. I went full-time with my photography, turned 30, and then went to Paris for three and a half weeks. It was just a whirlwind, and there was so much I had to adjust to. So now, being a year into a fully freelance life, I’ve felt more confident going into the fall than last year. I now know when to expect the slow months and what months will be insane. When I reflect on the past year and the commercial work I made, I never would have guessed how much fun I would have photographing events and having that be a big portion of my commercial work. When I go to an event lately, I notice how quickly I get into the groove of things and how quickly I feel confident getting close to strangers, especially popping the flash off close to people. I was still so intimidated this time last year, and it would take a while for me to get into the groove of things. It’s an incredible feeling to see yourself grow and become more confident in your practice.

NYC 2024

So Ariel and I went to NYC in June, and it was an absolute blast (as always). We drank a ton of wine, ate an insane amount of pastries, and had our fair share of our favorite NYC slices. Getting back on 5th Ave for a few hours felt like home. It was good to be back. So here are a few of my favorites from shooting around NYC.

Some new Commercial Work

I finally bought a Profoto strobe—a beer can-sized A2. I wanted this mainly for events, to remove my flash from my camera, and to be able to move my strobe around to light people a bit more dynamically. But it’s already come in handy and proven to be a pretty worthy investment based on this first time using it. I feel like this has opened up a whole new world of possibilities with my work, and I’m so excited to learn how to use this flash more and more. My favorite coffee shop in town, Babas, asked me to photograph their catering. The shoot was in a new office building in town, so I wanted this to be full of energy and life and not so stale as we all know an office environment could be. So I wanted these to have a harsh bare bulb look but slightly off-camera to make it more dynamic.

These were all made only using my Profoto A2 and my Leica SL2-S with a 24-70 mm f/2.8 lens.

I’ve already reached the email length with this one, but I’ll be sure to share some more recent commercial work and maybe some new street work if I can find the motivation to get out in this 90 degree heat. We’ll see.

Talk soon, I promise.