New York City: A Portrait

This selection of photos is a small sample of a much larger body of work that I shot while living and studying in New York City. I have lived in a number of large cities in North America but in many ways New York stands alone and is my favourite city to this day. It is obvious from my portraits that I am not a fan, or practitioner, of “guerrilla photography”. I don’t like having a camera stuck in my face as if I were an inanimate object and, as a result, I won’t do the same to others. I always try to get permission before I photograph my subjects. If I am close enough to ask, I ask. If I am working at a distance, I make eye contact, point to my camera and give a thumbs up/thumbs down gesture. If the answer is a negative then I let the moment go and move on. It is amazing how people’s initial resistance to being photographed subsides once they become a willing part of the process. The rest of this statement has been deleted due to lack of space.