Reading · My Cast Iron Life

For sixteen years, I’ve had a front-row seat to other people’s stories. I’ve held the camera while they cried, laughed, fell apart, came back together. I’ve been trusted with the versions of people they didn’t know they were showing me.

This is my turn.

Justin was there at the very beginning.

The summer I got laid off, I started a photography group. No plan. No agenda. Just a bunch of people who wanted to explore New York City with cameras. Justin was one of the first to show up. We were both kids from Queens. His house was maybe 10 minutes from mine. We roamed the city together before either of us knew this would become our lives, before either of us had a client or a camera bag worth carrying.

When I got my first wedding, I brought him with me. There were a few of those early jobs where my dad drove us. He’d wait, help us load gear, show up however he was needed. Justin reminded me of that detail during the shoot. I had forgotten. My dad hadn’t.

The park Justin chose was the one between our two houses. A park in Queens we both grew up in. A park my dad probably walked through a hundred times before any of us thought to document it.

There is something I can’t fully explain about having the person who knew you at the very beginning be the one holding the camera at a moment like this. Someone who knows the inside of your brain. Who knew your dad when your dad could still drive.

I asked Justin for 15 minutes. Just a few Polaroids. I didn’t want to take up too much of his time.

Two hours later we were still in that park.

I didn’t know I was asking for that. I didn’t know I needed it. And because I didn’t know, I couldn’t overthink it. I just showed up.

What he caught in those two hours is now a document of a version of my dad that no longer exists. A man who could still walk through a park. Who still knew my face.