Shout out to @kathyryan for her incredible 39 year tenure at the NY Times magazine @nytmag as the Photography Director. It has been an honor to witness her vision and how she’s managed to stay on the pulse of culture in our fast paced world of imaging. She certainly was not afraid of taking chances and I am forever grateful to her because she took one of those chances on me and gave me my start in the world of editorial photography. It’s kind of a funny story!
We happened to meet by chance at my alma mater, RIT @rit.photo , where she was giving a lecture on the art of photo editing and if it wasn’t for her invite to stop by the magazine next time I went down to NYC, I would not be where I am today. I took her up on that offer and drove down to NYC during winter break to show her my work. I still remember that cold winter day and navigating the slush-filled streets right after a snowstorm. I decided to walk the 15 blocks to the Times with my college portfolio in hand and remember very vividly feeling butterflies in my stomach as I stopped at the corner of 34th and 8th avenue waiting for the crosswalk light. Just then, a cab careened into a massive puddle of dirty slush water on the side of the street. As if in slow motion, I watched the cab hit the puddle at full speed and all that slush water flew into the air and of course landed all over my outfit. “Welcome to New York, buddy,” a passerby whispered as it dawned on me why all the New Yorkers around me kept a safe 3-foot distance from the curb — to avoid exactly what just happened to me! Soaking, embarrassed, and running late to my appointment, I panicked and almost blew it off altogether. But instead, I resolved to just deal with the mess and figure out a way to move forward. It was at that moment that I noticed a McDonald’s across the street, quickly ran in, took all my clothes off, and used the hand dryer in the bathroom to dry off. After what must have been twenty minutes of hogging the bathroom, I continued up to Kathy’s office, which was located on 43rd street at the time. Running a few minutes late, I rushed up and apologized, explaining the story behind my lateness...
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