Well, that was not entirely what I expected. First, it wasn’t Magnum photographers as the surprise guests. It was James Nachtwey and Steve McCurry, a Seven AND Magnum photographer. Also probably two of the most famous (if not THE most famous) living documentary photographers. Nachtwey won a Ted Award to document XDR-TB, a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, and had his photos premiere live in New York, Rio, London, Sydney, Hong Kong and ANTARCTICA, among other places. McCurry is most famous for the Afghan Girl, although all his stuff is pretty amazing.
Anyway, I digress. I walked in and had David Alan Harvey greet me within two minutes and–can I get an amen?–offer me a beer. The loft ends up being in the “Photographer Building,” aptly named since at least 40 photographers live and work there and has been that way since before the neighborhood became trendy and totally unaffordable. The rooftop view (my photo above) has an amazing vista of the city and is enough of a reason itself to go back.
After ev

In August, I stopped in NYC for what was supposed to be a month of freelancing before returning home to California. Long story short, I accidentally got a job in a photo studio and decided to stick around.
Between figuring out the difference between express and local stops and scrambling for an apartment that wasn’t a windowless five story walk up, I also found myself learning more about photography than I ever thought possible. No, my understanding of composition hasn’t reached new, otherworldly dimensions and sadly, I can still barely work a lighting kit. But goddamn, do I now know how to hustle in the photo business.
There is no place in the world with more work for photographers but inversely, there is also no place with a higher concentration of photographers. Building on the fact that New York City residents have a natural propensity to go out as often as possible while also getting to network, there are a lot of events for photographers. These gatherings inevitably have free food, new contacts to giv