In 2004 Adam Moss and Jody Quon asked me to shoot a weekly spread for their relaunch of New York Mag

In 2004 Adam Moss and Jody Quon asked me to shoot a weekly spread for their relaunch of New York Magazine. The idea was simple: Set up a seamless on the street in NYC and wait for interesting looking passersby. The Look Book was born and was an instant hit. Amy LaRocca’s interviews were insightful and revealing, and there was no greater thrill than seeing somebody on the subway turn the magazine through 90 degrees to look at an old school Double Page Spread. People rarely refused us and we had a smattering of celebrity catches: John Waters, Helen Mirren, Cynthia Rowley, Parker Posey to name a few. The sittings lasted anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes. All shot on film, and some Polaroid. We hit every neighborhood in all seasons and all weather (except rain). Adam and Jody’s vision meant that we beat the Street Style craze by a few years, and in the process created a record of the city’s finest and quirkiest. The Gawker snarkily said we focussed on “students, old ladies and idiots” which was untrue, but raised a laugh. The inevitable compilation book sold thousands. The whole process taught me an incredible lesson in casting, how to take a portrait, how to persuade a person who left home that morning not knowing they would be part of a photo session into posing, and how to pick on a salient detail that made somebody unique. Thank you Jody and Adam, I am so proud to have been part of the magazine’s illustrious history, and so glad to have an amazing archive of photographs of New Yorkers…my adopted home town. A selection of Look Book Greatest Hits appears in the recently released “Highbrow, Lowbrow, Brilliant, Despicable: Fifty Years of New York”, published by Simon & Schuster. -- source link

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