Make It Right / V KTH / Suga MYG / BTS Completed

New York

I haven't been back to New York for nearly a year since basing myself in London after college. I've been lucky to connect with a few new bands early to work on music videos, and was able to be really creative and take risks which got them noticed, and gave me opportunities. I prefer to stay in the background but the success did mean I was able to get a gallery showing of my photographs in the West End which is nice for exposure, and I have an exhibit in Spitalfields in the east central part of the city where I live.

I love the vibrancy and diversity of the neighborhood. There are a lot of artists, but some bankers and some tradespeople. There are so many restaurants I never need to cook anything which suits my schedule. I have a penthouse flat in an old Huguenot weavers building which has large skylight windows on the top floor so the weavers who once lived in the area in the 17th century could work late into the evening with as much natural light as possible. It's where I keep my studio and where I spend most of my time. I even moved a bed up there, not much more than a mattress on the floor, but it enabled me to keep working into the evening when I was doing the photographs for the exhibits. I loved to lay under the windows and stare up at the night sky, thinking about all of the people who lived in the building before me, through the decades, centuries even, and wondering what they thought when they looked up at those same stars.

'Why would I ever want to leave London?' I think to myself as I step into the Airbnb in Brooklyn Heights. I used to live in this area of New York when I was in college. It is a little bit like the part of America I grew up in, tree lined streets and local coffeeshops. I like to live on the edge of the city, with a bit of distance from the center where all of the tourists and chain stores and theme restaurants are. I never feel at home in those parts of any city, but that's exactly where I'm headed today. I've been booked on a photo shoot for a KPOP band.

They aren't the usual sort of band I tend to work with. I am most known for working with independent British bands, and more recently, for my exhibit of photographs on the London Grime music scene which got me a lot of press. That exhibition may be why I was hired, but I don't know anything about who booked me. I got a DM saying that it had to be this week in NY, and that it had to be me. A first class plane ticket arrived by courier the next morning. I didn't even know they still issued paper tickets, but it seemed like someone was trying to impress me so I took the job. I only had a day to pack my gear and get ready for the trip so I didn't even have time to do research on the band the way I normally would.

A contact at the Management company, Soo Yun, told me the photo studio in Manhattan is booked for 4pm today, which seems like an odd time to start but she said they have a fan signing event earlier in the day so they will come straight from that upper east side hotel ballroom to the studio booked downtown.

I've heard of BTS. I must have heard a few of their songs on playlists, but it's their music videos I remember; full of slick camera moves, and showcasing intense choreography. This is not what I do. There is probably little chance of getting to direct a MV for them, and this tour promotion photo shoot might be all there is for me and BTS.

If I'm going to get good pictures that capture the band, I like to know about them, observe them for a while. I used to go to club Visions in Dalston to see Skepta and spots in Leytonstone to see Kano or the Roll Deep crew in someone's basement at a super secret party or some empty building pretending to be a club that night. I was probably the only short blonde American in the room at many of these shows, but I always felt connected. I did this on trips to London all throughout high school and college before I even moved there. Observing the scene, being part of it, eventually allows you a sort of access to the artists because you're just there with them, and you become one of them. I heard BTS has a sort of in-crowd following called ARMY but that they're worldwide and millions strong. Not exactly the same thing. It might be harder to get to know them.