Sometimes before I do a shoot I have a theme in mind. Other times there’s a bit of serendipity involved. Let’s flash backward about 10 years. I’m 23, a waiter in New Brunswick and I’m about to move in with my co-worker, Cindy Becker. What a formative time in my life. I was out on my own for just a little more than a year. Cindy and I had just really become friends. I was making ends meet at Old Man Rafferty’s, a veritable boot camp for the service industry. Anyhow you get the picture. Cindy and I worked together we played together, we were drinking buddies and we were very protective of each other. Not that we didn’t terrorize each other from time to time as well. The best way to describe our friendship was as siblings.

Time is a funny thing. It passes rather quickly, and suddenly you’re in your thirties trying to figure out how to become an adult what parts of you are worth holding onto and what parts (including friendships) are worth letting go. I made a lot of friends back during my 3 year tour at OMR, I can’t say I’ve kept in touch with everyone. Cindy is one of those people though, if you make a small effort she’ll keep you locked in. Over the years we’d call each other to keep up and chat. I’m seeing this girl or what not, she’s buying what seems like at least a million bulldogs and one day she tells me she’s engaged. “Excellent, when do I meet him and let’s do a photoshoot!”

It’s been like 5-6 years since either one of us has seen the other in the flesh. She calls her and Ethan are downstairs in the car. I make my way down, Americano in hand. I slam it, and the first thing she tells me is that I haven’t aged a day. Ha. Sometimes the best friends are also the best liars. Maybe I do look the same as 10 years ago, I don’t feel the same inside (which is likely a good thing). I meet Ethan. And we make for Brooklyn Bridge park.

One of the things about being a photographer is this moment when you meet a new person, model/client/assistant you’re gonna do it a lot, it’s a tricky thing. I’m an easy guy to trust. And trust is so important during a shoot. It means you have to be both likable and approachable, folks need to be comfortable around you. Here Cindy and I am catching up, and I’m thinking how do I get Ethan involved in the conversation? Cindy tells me how they met, she’s asking me about my life and how it is living with my girlfriend (at this point it’s been 2 days) I’m here catching up 5-6 years worth of news with her meanwhile Ethan is trying to figure out where the hell I’m taking them. I start telling them about Brooklyn and what’s been going on the last 3 years since moving here. I crack a few well timed jokes about myself, we get lost in the moment and more than once we get a little lost. And just like that Ethan is in the conversation. In short, I don’t advise taking wrong turns on purpose but this time we were all so tangled up in conversing with each other it just sorta happened. I realized rather quickly that I really like Ethan.

So I was talking about theme and how that applies to this shoot. Well I guess I would say the theme here is Higher Love. Yep like that Steve Winwood song from the 80’s that plays on those slow jam stations. Between the imagery of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background and the way you see two people ebb and flow so well together it just seems like it works. To quote Steve, “Without it life is wasted time.”