My Currently Untitled Photo Book: The First Shoot

The Sunday before the first official photos, I went over to dumbo [and brought my boyfriend Ian] so I could do some test shots. Yes, I waited that long to do test shots, but I have a job and I’m also a world-class procrastinator and I’ve also been thinking about this for 5 years so I was feeling pretty confident I knew what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. Did I think I could eyeball it and get every shot exact? Yes I sure did. Turns out, getting everything perfectly lined up is...slightly harder than expected? But! I got really close, so it was both humbling and thrilling. I think I’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly. I’m picky about the framing because I want to do a bunch of these as split-screen before/afters, and the closer they match, the better I think they’ll look. That being said, I also like a little bit of error. It’s a nod to how I put together some triptychs for my senior photo gallery back in college, and it feels true to my style. So I’ve made peace with the fact that not all of them are going to work as side by sides. And that’s okay. (She says now. We’ll see.)

The test shoot went basically as I thought it would. I brought a tripod, and I intend to for most of the shoots. Even though I never shoot with a tripod (especially if I’m just walking around with a camera like I was in all of 2020) my thought process is that trying to match photos up completely handheld would lead to a really chaotic and disorganized 60 seconds. A tripod gives me the ability to spend 5-10 minutes lining it all up, then 60 seconds of shooting where I can actually focus on what’s happening in the frame, and make a few small adjustments to increase the chances that I have an almost exact match.

I didn’t make any big adjustments to my plan before the first shoot. Which led to these just a few days later…

The first thing I noticed was how quickly 60 seconds goes by — which then led immediately to the realization of how little control I’m going to have over what’s in the frame. I like to think of myself as a very patient photographer —I’ll wait forever to get the shot I want— but this puts everything in a very, very small window of time. Which on the surface I knew, but now I think it will actually be one of the most interesting challenges of this entire project. I might play with a few for fun—insert some specific people or moments just because—but for the most part I’ve pictured them as authentic to whatever is actually happening exactly 5 years later.

The second thing I noticed: I’ve pictured a much larger number of people in the 2025 photos, but that may not always be the case — especially in the early months when it’s still pretty chilly outside. This shot is a great example of a pretty prime spot in dumbo that’s still closed 5 years later. There will undoubtedly be other areas that have not bounced back, businesses that have completely shut down, bad weather, etc. – and while it’s all a part of it that I want, I hadn’t thought about it this deeply until it was actually happening. Some of my favorite shots might get completely washed out, and I’ll have to decide if I want to give myself a 24-48 hour window to re-shoot and if that will have an overall effect on the integrity of the work. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it! Mostly I think I’m going to get lucky, and the shots are all going to be exactly what they need to be.

Overall, I feel so energized by this first shoot. Let’s fuckin’ do this.

If you know someone that would be interested in this work, please share this with them! Instagram will largely be where I share first, but substack and my blog will also be where I do a lot of writing and preview a lot of images as I edit.