henri bendel no 7

This was one of my favorite photo shoots in recent memory; loving the pieces in this look and how nicely they all came together certainly has a lot to do with it, but also what is rarely witnessed by the reader is the behind-the-scenes hilarity that ensued. Awkward moments and patience present themselves when you try to conduct a photo shoot on a relatively well-trafficked NYC street on a weekend, and during this particular session some passersby also took my photo (why, and what they will do with them, I will never know),a guy parked his car three feet from me and stared until we were 30 seconds away from wrapping it up, there were some typical “NYC summer” smells, aka sewage, sifting about, and loud, live music was radiating into the air from a nearby beer garden.

You wouldn’t have necessarily gathered that all of this was happening pretty much simultaneously from looking at these images, but anyone, blogger or otherwise, who have attempted to take photos outside in an urban setting has experience with these challenges. You either find it all to be downright hilarious and take it in stride, or it can become maddening. But somehow, I’ve managed to not hear the noise; I think it’s a defense mechanism built into us humans that lays dormant until we live in an overpopulated city setting. On the contrary though, sometimes, when I return home to my parents house and sleep in my childhood room, it’s so quiet that at first it’s almost unsettling. But then I become as accustomed to it as I do blocking out all of that city commotion whirling around me.

Who would have ever thought that filtering what comes through your senses was a skill I would have acquired when I embarked for NYC 16 years ago? Not me! My dad had hopes for a different skill; speaking up and being more assertive. Eh, still working on that one, dad!