Newsletter #15 - Decade in Review - Part 2

NOAH KALINA

20191125

This is part 2 of my decade in review. Last week we looked at 2010 and 2011. I often say my career/life/body image peak was somewhere between 2008-2013. After digging through my archive this week I don't need to give a range. It's 2012. That's what we are looking at this week.
It's all downhill after this.

In early 2012 I broke a bone in my foot and I couldn't walk around without crutches. I had no idea how it happened. One day I woke up and couldn't put pressure on my foot. It was obviously a super bummer.

Somehow I was able to hobble up onto to the roof of a building on the west side of Manhattan and photograph these old men in suits for a story about Danny Meyer selling a portion of his restaurant empire to Related. This was for Bloomberg Business Week.

January 10, 2012

The guy on the far right is Stephen M. Ross. He's the owner of Related Companies. You might have read about him recently. He's worth 7 billion dollars. The guy second from the right is Danny Meyer. He is known for a number of restaurants including Gramercy Tavern, The Modern and Shake Shack. Shake Shack is the best fast food burger there is. This isn't even an argument. In-N-Out is completely overrated. I can't even believe people rave about that place. Yeah. It's cheap. But that's about it. Anyway, according to Wikipedia Meyer is now worth 660 million dollars. I have no idea who those guys are on the left. Behind them is the site of the soon to be developed Hudson Yards.

A few days later a friend of mine got in touch. He was doing promotional client work for a knee walker company.

January 16, 2012

I shot some friends pretending to have a broken foot using a knee walker. How completely random is this?

I even actually might have been paid for this.

To rub in the fact I could barely walk, I did my first shoot with Robin Cantrell which turned into an ongoing collaboration with Indelible Dance Company. 

Robin 

February 10, 2012

I dedicated my 7th newsletter to the work I have done with this company. If you are new here and you are interested I can forward you the email.

                        
                            I started an ongoing collaboration with Snarkitecture. I had photographed them a few times prior to this for magazine editorials but this was the first time I worked with them to document their projects. 

On April 5 and 6, 2012 we worked on Memorial Bowing at The Orange Bowl in Miami Florida.

Daniel Arsham and Alex Mustonen 

April 5, 2012

Snarkitecture also programed the lights that illuminated the pillars outside the stadium. It's called Beacons. 

You can watch the film here.

                        
                            I made the best and most epic film with Jason Polan called All Day Pass.
April 18, 2012

                        
                            On May 9th, 2012 I made this photograph of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan minutes after they were married at their home in Palo Alto, CA. I watched Mark upload this photo to his Facebook account. 

This was the day after Facebook became a public company and before Facebook became truly and overtly evil. 

Anyway, it was probably the most surreal weekend of my life and I still can't believe it happened.

                        
                            A few weeks later I was back in San Francisco and I took a walk with Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square.
Jack Dorsey

June, 2, 2012

I tried to convince him to move Twitter HQ to New York and he was like, yeah, New York is cool but look at this view. 

A modern day aside --- While Twitter has also become an evil social media platform I find it significantly less evil than Facebook so I still use it. I understand this is actually debatable. 

I made my account private on Twitter to prevent myself from getting into arguments with the psychotic right wing who exist on that platform. Since I have a verified twitter account it can amplify certain tweets and there is honestly nothing less fun than having a tweet go viral. Since I've gone private I actually enjoy the platform. It's like hanging out with friends. I highly suggest consider going private. There is no use for twitter in a professional context especially if you're an artist so why even be public?  

Whatever. I am @noahkalina and if you send a follow request I'll approve.

Le Monde asked me to photograph a story about the emerging scene in the Rockaways. I went back there a number of times making photos on and around the beach and boardwalk. 

I sat in on a surfing class at Local's Surf School. These guys teach and run it.

June 26, 2012

I still do not understand how surfing is a thing anywhere on Long Island. There are literally no waves unless a terrible storm is heading our way...

Aakash Nihalani did a residency at the Willem de Kooning estate and I spent the day with him. 

"Noah" by Aakash Nihalani 

East Hampton, NY

20120814

                        
                            I started an ongoing collaboration with the winery Boundary Breaks in Lodi, NY.

I have made so many fun and excellent photographs here over the past 8 years. I know absolutely nothing about wine or alcohol since I rarely ever drink but If you are into riesling wine you should try them out. Bruce tells me it's actually really great and he says he's not just saying that because he makes it.

Bruce and Kees

Make sure to check out the Boundary Breaks website. Almost all of the photos and videos are done by me.

It's the best winery website in the world (I'm not exaggerating) designed by Sons & Co in New Zealand. 
Boundary Breaks 

August 8, 2012

Kathy Ryan and Scott Thode curated this great SVA Alumni show called myths & realities.
August 29-September 29, 2012

I showed an updated version of my "everyday" video (12.5 years). 

I put the version I made for this show on YouTube.

This version only got 6.3 million views. 
Screenshot of Youtube Video

20191121

-- I am putting a 20 year version of this video on YouTube on January 13, 2020. --

                        
                            I got to spend a week down at Disney World. I had free reign to make anything I wanted. I told them I wanted to make really moody, well lit portraits of the characters in various locations around the park. 

In order to shoot a lot of these photos we had to shoot either before or after the park opened. 

Mickey and Mini Mouse

September 25, 2012

I had a normal conversation with Cinderella in the castle about waking up at 4am to get ready for the shoot.

Cinderella in the Cinderella Castle Suite

September 26, 2012

After we wrapped in the suite we took an elevator down into the underground tunnels and I got off the elevator and looked to my right and another Cinderella was standing there. I think about that moment every day of my life. 

Goofy

I pitched an alternative idea. I wanted to ride the roller coasters alone with random families and appear to not have any fun when the photo was taken. The folks at Disney were so cool they let me ride every ride and let me get the photos.

We even got releases on all of these people. 

For some reason they liked the other photos better and didn't use these :)

Hurricane Sandy
October 29, 2012

I remember the storm was coming and we knew it would be big. I was scrambling to get all of my furniture and rugs off my studio floor. I was a block from the East River and I had a feeling it was going to flood. 

Reggie Watts happened to be walking down the street and we hung out for a few minutes. He made it feel like it was a big joke and it was fun. But I was legitimately scared. 

Police shutting down the roads west of Kent Ave in the background.

That night Manhattan lost power below 14th street.

I found someone who could give me access to an apartment that I could photograph the city. Full panoramic here. 

My studio never flooded and I never lost power. My life was barely even interrupted. I got really lucky.

The next day there was a rainbow over the east river. 

A few days later I went back to the Rockaways for LeMonde magazine to photograph the destruction of the Boardwalk.

November 3, 2012

When is the next big storm going to come? How much more time does NYC have? I don't know, but it seemed like a good time to start looking for property upstate....

Aakash 

December 23, 2012

River Street

Next Monday is Cyber Monday, my favorite holiday, so I am going to be skipping the next installment of my decade in review to do a holiday gift guide extravaganza. Basically I'll just be linking to things I like and or use that I think might be worthy of your consideration. 

If you have any products/books/art/objects you'd like to promote here in the form of an advertisement I am open to any and all offers. My audience is highly engaged beautiful people (25-65) who have incredible taste. Most live in Brooklyn, New York State or California and work primarily in the arts or technology.

BEDMOUNDS is set to be released on next Monday!

Pre-order it here!

See you soon -

Noah

                        
                            Copyright © 2019 Noah Kalina, All rights reserved.
                        

This email was sent to <<Email Address>>
why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences
Noah Kalina · PO Box 202 · Barryville, NY 12719-5647 · USA