Late afternoon, the light hit the brownstones in the West Village and threw long shadows. I had my Leica out and no client in mind. Even so, something was nagging at me. After a good run and a few viral campaigns, the question comes: what's next, and can you top it?
Chasing the next big thing
In New York the pace doesn't let up. One day you're shooting a fashion editorial in DUMBO with the Manhattan Bridge behind you, the next you're scouting a fresh location on the Lower East Side for a celebrity portrait. Every client wants something new. I like that energy, but the well gets dry.
The work has to be good, and it also has to be new. What was cutting-edge last month is old now. I kept chasing the next viral concept and the next technique, the one that would make people stop scrolling and say Dante's Models did that. After a while you doubt every idea. Is it big enough? Is it new enough? You put the pressure on yourself.
Doubt after a win
We had a couple of campaigns on billboards in Times Square and an editorial spread in a major fashion magazine, shot in our studio in NoHo. You'd expect confidence to be at its peak, and it is, partly. But under it sits a quiet voice asking if that was a fluke and whether you can do it again.
The lull after a good shoot
After our shoot for a luxury brand on a Midtown rooftop, I watched the golden hour hit the skyline and felt proud. The images were good, the client was happy and the campaign did well. The next morning, pouring coffee in my TriBeCa loft, I felt empty. The bar was set high, and every new idea looked ordinary next to it. Plenty of creative people know this feeling. The fear of not matching your past work can keep you from starting the next project. I have to remind myself that creative work doesn't go in a straight line.
Stepping away from the lens
Sometimes the best thing for the work is to stop working. For me that means leaving the studio, putting the gear down and just being in New York.
Walking without a plan
I've started walking neighborhoods I don't usually shoot in. Recently I spent a Sunday wandering around Astoria, Queens, with no destination. There was street art, the smell from the Greek bakeries, and the light on a crumbling brick wall on a side street. I wasn't looking for a shot, just looking. Ideas started to come, not full concepts for a client, but sparks: a mood, a color palette. Your brain needs room to take things in without having to produce anything.
I also spend time with other kinds of art. An afternoon at MoMA, not to study composition for my own work, just to look at the brushstrokes and textures. Or an indie film at Film Forum in Greenwich Village. Seeing stories told in someone else's medium feeds my own eye.
Letting things be imperfect
The biggest change lately is that I allow imperfection. Polished, airbrushed images have their place, especially in high-end fashion and commercial work. But I'm drawn more and more to the raw and slightly off-center.
Happy accidents
The moments people remember are rarely planned. They're a bit messy and unexpected. So now I stick less rigidly to a mood board or a shot list and leave room to improvise. I let a model move more freely, even if that means a stray hair or a less perfect pose. I let natural light set the mood and don't overpower it with strobes. It's scary to give up that much control when you're used to crafting every pixel. The images feel more alive and more human.
Ideas work the same way. I no longer try to force a big idea to show up fully formed. I let it shift. A small detail from an earlier project can start a whole new direction. Not every idea has to be a seismic shift, and a slow, quiet evolution can end up stronger than a forced "next big thing." This has made my work more honest and brought back the fun.
Remembering why
With client demands, tight deadlines and pressure to keep innovating, it's easy to forget why you started. For me it was storytelling: catching a moment or an emotion and keeping it. The lighting, the technique and the posing are tools for that.
The person in the frame
Taking a step back, I'm looking again at the person: the story behind the eyes, the detail in the fabric. In a portrait session at our Brooklyn studio, or a commercial shoot where a brand needs some personality, the aim is the same, a real connection and a real feeling. Even in high-stakes fashion work, what matters is whether the image lands emotionally.
Where inspiration comes from
Inspiration isn't a light switch. It builds up from everything you've seen: a conversation overheard in a coffee shop in Park Slope, the detail on a gargoyle in Midtown East, a street fair in Harlem. These fragments pile up on their own and become what you create from.
Feeding it
So instead of hunting for the next big idea, I take downtime even when the schedule is packed. I look for new experiences, even ones unrelated to photography. I journal, sketch, listen to music that moves me and look at art that challenges me. Those pieces connect in ways you can't plan, and they produce the ideas that drive our best work. It makes for better photos and a better life, behind the lens and in front of it.
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